The group of countries supporting Ukraine with security assistance have now established eight “capability coalitions” to focus near and long-term support for Kyiv around specific technology areas, a senior U.S. defense official told reporters.
During a briefing following the 19th meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group (UDCG) last week, the official said 30 countries are either participating in the new coalitions that are based around capabilities for Ukraine’s air forces, air defense, artillery maritime security, armor, information technology, de-mining and drones.
“These coalitions — what they are offering the Ukrainians and our own security assistance efforts is a way to streamline our assistance so that we can be channeling donor contributions for both near- and long-term support in the most efficient way possible. We’re focusing on specific capability areas so that we can make strategic and, frankly, practical decisions about specific platforms that Ukraine will need today and in the future to focus on sustainability of Ukraine’s force and to minimize costs over time,” the senior defense official said. “So it’s really an approach that enables allies and partners to support Ukraine’s capability needs from soup to nuts with a coherent approach to training, maintenance and sustainment for each capability area.”
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin noted following the 18th UDCG meeting in January that Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and the U.K. along with the U.S. would take on roles leading each of the capability coalitions (Defense Daily, Jan. 23).
“I’m proud that the United States is co-leading the artillery capability coalition, along with France, and also co-leading the air-force capability coalition, alongside Denmark and the Netherlands,” Austin said at the time.
The senior defense official told reporters on Friday that priorities borne out of the new capability coalitions are likely to be codified in individual nations’ new bilateral security commitment agreements with Ukraine.
“We’re really excited about the capability coalitions. We think they offer a sustainable and efficient solution to supporting Ukraine, and we’re really heartened by the long-term commitments,” the senior defense official said.
The U.S. once again hosted last week’s UDCG meeting without a new weapons aid package to announce, as further funding to continue assistance to Ukraine remains stalled in Congress.
“We’ve talked a lot about the costs certainly of security assistance, and I think we’ve also talked a lot about the costs of inaction, that if Ukraine fails because we fail to provide them with security assistance, the costs are high for Europe, for the United States, and for the world, higher than the costs of security assistance today,” the senior defense official said. “We do absolutely need this supplemental funding. There is no substitute for it.”
The Senate passed its $95.3 billion foreign aid bill last week, which includes $60 billion to continue supporting Ukraine, while the legislation’s prospects remain uncertain in the House and as both chambers are out on a two-week recess (Defense Daily, Feb. 13).
Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh on Tuesday urged the House to take up the foreign aid bill, which also includes support for Israel and Taiwan, “so that we can deliver Ukraine the air defenses, artillery and ammunition they need to defend themselves.”
“If passed by the House and signed into law, this legislation would directly advance America’s interests and values. The Senate-passed national security supplemental bill would allow the department to provide military aid to Ukraine, deliver security assistance to Israel and bolster our support in the Indo-Pacific region. It is also an investment in our nation’s defense industrial base,” Singh said during a press briefing.
Singh was asked on Tuesday how quickly the U.S. could assemble its next package to provide Ukraine with weapons pulled from DoD inventories, using Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA), if Congress were to approve the supplemental funding.
“As you’ve seen with most of our PDA packages, we’ve been able to surge systems and capabilities pretty rapidly within a few days. So as soon as Congress gives us that authority, we will be able to pretty quickly deliver a PDA [package] to the Ukrainians,” Singh said.
The senior defense officials told reporters on Friday the U.S. does see Ukraine starting to run short on critical supplies for its fight, including ammunition.
“And we see this as something that could be the harbinger of what is to come if we do not get this supplemental funding,” the official said. “Without supplemental funding, we [also] will not be able to continue to supply Ukraine’s air defenses. And we will see the results in cities being bombarded. We will see more civilians dying. And we will see Ukraine struggling to protect their critical infrastructure and their forward line of troops.”