US: Biden said he authorized $5.5 billion in presidential drawdown authority

US: Last Thursday, President Joe Biden pledged $8 billion in military aid to Ukraine. This may be the last package he approves before his term ends and this year’s presidential election takes place in November.

This is the 66th equipment shipment that President Biden’s administration has given to Ukraine. It is a part of the departing president’s push to keep arms flowing to Kyiv in the midst of political controversy in the United States over the amount of money that should be spent on supporting the ally in its ongoing conflict with Russia.

It happened before to Monday, September 30, the U.S. fiscal year’s conclusion, when $5.9 billion in financing for Ukraine was scheduled to expire.

Presidential Drawdown Authority, which enables the president to move military funds from the U.S. Department of military (DOD) to other nations without requiring Congress’s consent for each transfer, is worth $5.5 billion, according to Biden.

Through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, an additional $2.4 billion has been granted, enabling Ukraine to bolster its military sector and acquire more air defense, unmanned aerial systems, and air-to-ground missiles.

The president said on Thursday that “through these actions, my message is clear: The United States will provide Ukraine with the support it needs to win this war.” The president will leave office in January after withdrawing from the presidential contest in late July.

Newsweek was informed by Feryal Cherif, the head of Loyola Marymount University’s International Relations Program, that “in general, Biden’s legacy will be a function of our presidential election and the outcome of the Ukrainian-Russian war.”

It occurs in the midst of uncertainty about the nature and extent of America’s post-election support for Kyiv, given that the GOP’s presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump, has criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who visited the United States last week to discuss his “victory plan” for winning the war.

Following their meeting on Friday, Trump said to reporters, “Our relationship is excellent. Additionally, I get along well with [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin, so if we win, I believe we can fix this issue swiftly.”

When asked about the former president’s ties with Putin at the meeting at Trump Tower in Manhattan, Zelensky said, “I hope we have more good relations with us.”

“We’ll do it; it takes two to tango,” the former president retorted.

Trump said at a North Carolina campaign event only a few days before on Wednesday: “We continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refused to make a deal, Zelensky.”

He went on, “Ukraine is no more. It is no longer Ukraine. Any agreement, no matter how bad, would have been preferable to the current situation.”

The president of Ukraine and Senator JD Vance of Ohio, Trump’s running mate, have lately traded barbs after Zelensky labeled Vance’s proposals for ending the conflict as “too radical.”

On September 11, Vance said in an interview with the Shawn Ryan Show podcast, “Ukraine maintains its independence, and Russia receives Ukraine’s promise of neutrality—it doesn’t join NATO, or any of these allied organizations. That is about how the transaction will seem in the end.”

Following Zelensky’s denunciation, Vance said that he “does not appreciate” the president of Ukraine “telling the American taxpayer what they oughta do,” and that “he [Zelensky] oughta say thank you to the American taxpayer.”

According to Newsweek, Cherif, an associate professor of political science at Loyola Marymount University, “there is a good chance that President Zelensky will be pressured to negotiate a peace deal with Russia that involves the loss of territory” if Trump wins the election.”If this occurs, many would believe that it was possible to do this earlier in the conflict, save the United States billions of dollars and labeling Biden as a “foreign policy failure,” Cherif said.

As of September 26, the United States has given Ukraine security assistance totaling more than $59.3 billion since the start of the Biden administration.

In a June debate broadcast by CNN, Biden faced off against Trump as the Democratic Party’s presidential contender before resigning. Regarding the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Biden defended US assistance to Ukraine by claiming that Putin aims to “restore his Soviet Empire.”

Cherif said that in the event that Democratic presidential contender Kamala Harris wins, she “likely continues to support Ukraine.”

“Many Americans feel that, one, the country is losing money to a foreign war that it cannot win or finds too costly to win, and two, that we could have reached this same outcome, with much less money spent, years ago,” the speaker continued. “This is likely to be the situation under which the Harris presidency finds itself.” It’s conceivable that Biden and Harris will see Ukraine as a failure in foreign policy unless the war’s course drastically alters.”

Outside of regular business hours, Newsweek emailed Harris’ staff to get a response.

Cherif said that she thinks Harris may “seek to mainstream a new narrative about the war” via “encouraging Ukraine to accept the losses, and with this aid package, frame its continued commitment to containing Russia.”

She continued: “If they can advance a narrative that we stood up to aggression but now is the time to build strong borders, it could mediate some of the blowback on Biden’s legacy and a would-be Harris presidency.”

“Defending Ukraine is, not so much the right thing to do but, a vital, long-term American national security issue,” Cherif continued to emphasize.

Harris criticized recommendations last week that Ukraine give land to Moscow in order to bring about peace, declaring that such ideas “are not proposals for peace.” Rather, they are offers to give up. The reason the United States backs Ukraine is not altruism but rather our geopolitical interest.”

Last week, when Zelensky was visiting the United States, Harris assured him that her backing for Kyiv’s defense is “unwavering.”

“I have been proud to stand with Ukraine,” said the vice president. I’ll stick behind Ukraine and do all in my power to make sure it wins this conflict and lives in safety, security, and prosperity. The United States must carry on its long-standing responsibility as a world leader.”

According to a Pew Research Center survey from July, 63% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning individuals think the United States should assist Ukraine in defending itself against Russia, compared to only 36% of Republicans and Republican-leaning individuals. Based on responses from 9,424 persons questioned between July 1 and July 7, this was determined. The margin of error for the survey was plus or minus 1.3 percentage points.