WASHINGTON: Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced a $1 billion military aid package as he forcefully argued for US leadership worldwide.
“These times will only worsen without strong and steady American leadership,” Austin said at the Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, California.
The new package includes more drones and ammunition for a key rocket system. The extra assistance brings the overall US security assistance to Ukraine up to $62 billion since the war began nearly three years ago.
Russia has incurred over 700,000 battlefield casualties since the start of the war, Austin said, and “squandered” more than $200 billion.
The US has since February 2022 led a coalition of countries that armed and equipped the military of Ukraine. “It seems to me a most grievous mistake, abandoning Kyiv,” Austin added.
This administration has made its choice. So has a bipartisan coalition in Congress,” said Austin. “The next administration must make its own choice.
This administration has made its pick. So has a bipartisan coalition in Congress,” Austin said. “The next government will have to make its own choice.
Although the outgoing defense secretary did not mention Donald Trump by name, his arguments for American engagement internationally were in dazzling contrast to the president-elect’s promise of “America first.”
Trump has repeatedly said that U S aid to Ukraine is of little value, while Vice President-elect JD Vance has said in the past that Russia is not an existential threat to Europe.
Austin’s message on the importance of aid to Ukraine came the same day Trump met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Paris before the reopening of Notre Dame.
The two met in the Elysee Palace with French President Emmanuel Macron for just over an hour on Saturday. In a post on social media, Zelensky described it as a “good and productive trilateral meeting.
“We all want this war to end as soon as possible and in a just way,” he said, adding that “President Trump is, as always, resolute.”
But key members of Trump’s incoming administration have questioned the value of foreign aid in general and military aid to Ukraine specifically.