Biden to leave Trump with billions for Ukraine weapons

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The Biden administration doesn’t have enough time left to use the billions of dollars lawmakers have authorized to arm Ukraine, U.S. and congressional officials said, leaving in President-Elect Donald Trump’s hands what to do with the remaining money.

The administration still has more than $6.5 billion left in what is known as drawdown authority, which allows the Defense Department to transfer weapons and equipment to Ukraine from its own stocks, U.S. officials said. The Pentagon has reached the limit of the weapons it can send Ukraine each month without affecting its own fighting capability, however, and is facing logistical challenges in getting the arms to Kyiv’s forces, they said.

The U.S. would have to ship more than $110 million worth of weapons a day, or just shy of $3 billion in December and January, to spend the remaining funds in time. “I would say it’s impossible," one congressional official said.

What Trump decides to do with the remaining money will have implications for the battlefield and could help determine how much leverage Kyiv has going into any potential peace negotiations with Russia. Trump has said he would end the war, and U.S. officials worry that his incoming administration could choose to withhold weapons to get Kyiv to the negotiating table.

The remaining funds “offer the next administration considerable leverage to stop or suspend shipments to Ukraine," said Michael Kofman, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a U.S. think tank. “The Trump administration’s first order of business will be to decide what to do with remaining equipment and how best to pursue the next supplemental request to Congress." A spokesperson for the Trump