US to send $300m in military aid to Ukraine as Republicans continue to block $60bn funding package

The US will send around $300m in military aid to Ukraine as Republicans continue to block a $60bn funding package for Kyiv.

The aid package being provided will include anti-aircraft missiles, artillery rounds and armour systems, a senior US defence official has said.

It marks the US Department of Defense’s first announced security package for Ukraine since December.

It came as Poland’s President Andrzej Duda and Prime Minister Donald Tusk used a joint visit to the White House on Tuesday to press Washington DC to break its impasse and release the $60bn (£47bn) of US support for Ukraine which is being blocked by Republicans.

The package would help to replenish funds for Ukraine during a critical moment in the war.

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Ukraine’s situation has become dire, with units on the frontline rationing munitions as they face a vastly better supplied Russian force.

CIA director William Burns told Congress that entire Ukrainian units have told him in recent days of being down to their last few dozen artillery shells.

The months without further shipments of US support have hurt operations, and Ukrainian troops withdrew from the eastern city of Avdiivka last month, where outnumbered defenders had withheld a Russian assault for four months.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly implored US Congress for help, but House Republican leadership has not been willing to bring the $60bn Ukraine aid package to the floor for a vote, saying any aid must first address border security needs.

Senior defence officials have told reporters the US defence department has been able to get cost savings of roughly $300m (£235m) in earlier Ukraine contracts and, given the battlefield situation, decided to use those savings to go ahead and send more weapons.

The United States has committed more than $44.9bn (around £35bn) in security assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of the Biden administration, including more than $44.2bn (around £34.6bn) since the beginning of Russia’s invasion on 24 February 2022.

The $300m funding was announced on Tuesday as Denmark said it would provide a military aid package for Ukraine worth around £263m.

It came as Russian President Vladimir Putin gave an interview to his country’s state media where he said he would be ready to use nuclear weapons if his nation’s sovereignty was threatened.

The Russian president also said on Wednesday that Finland and Sweden’s entry into NATO is “a meaningless step” and that Moscow will deploy troops and systems of destruction to the Finnish border after the country joins the alliance.

Mr Putin was speaking hours after a long-time aide of the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who Western leaders say was murdered by the Kremlin, was attacked with a hammer in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius.

Lithuanian police are investigating the attack on Leonid Volkov as it remains unclear who carried it out.

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Meanwhile, Russia’s military said it had killed 234 fighters who crossed into the country from Ukraine.

The fighters had attempted to reach the Russian town of Tetkino, which lies close to the border, according to the governor of Russia’s Kursk region, Roman Starovoit.

Sky News has not independently verified the claims.

Ukraine-based military groups, allegedly made up of Russian partisans, had earlier said they had carried out an incursion across Russia’s western border.

Overnight, officials said Ukraine has launched a drone attack on several Russian regions for the second night in row, with more than 30 drones destroyed in the air over the Voronezh region.

It came as three people were killed and at least 10 children were wounded after a Russian missile attack on the Ukrainian president’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih.

Earlier on Tuesday a Russian military plane crashed in Russia’s Ivanovo region with 15 people on board.

Russia’s defence ministry has not released details of casualties.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s security service (SBU) has claimed an alleged Russian agent serving in Ukraine’s army planned to kill commanders by poisoning their baths.

The SBU said military counterintelligence thwarted the attack against army commanders in the southern Zaporizhzhia region and detained a man who “turned out to be an active serviceman of the Ukrainian army”.

“To commit the crime, he planned to add a poisonous substance to the water of the bath and laundry complex, which was used by the command staff,” the SBU said.