The Pentagon will rush about $300 million in weapons to Ukraine after finding some cost savings in its contracts, even as the military remains deeply in debt and needs at least $10 billion to replenish all the weapons it needs from its supplies to help Kiev in its desperation. fight against Russia, the White House announced on Tuesday.

It is the first security package announced by the Pentagon for Ukraine since December, when it acknowledged it had run out of replenishment funds. Only in recent days did officials publicly acknowledge that not only were they out of replenishment money, but that they were also $10 billion in the red.

The announcement comes as Ukraine faces a dangerous shortage of ammunition and efforts to get new weapons funding in the House of Representatives have stalled amid Republican opposition. U.S. officials have insisted for months that the United States would not be able to resume arms shipments until Congress provided the additional replenishment funds that are part of the stalled supplemental spending bill.

The replenishment funds have allowed the Pentagon to draw existing munitions, air defense systems and other weapons from its reserve stockpiles under the president’s authority.

or PDA,

to Ukraine and then draw up contracts to replace those weapons necessary to maintain US military readiness.

The Pentagon is warning Congress that there is little money available to replace weapons sent to Ukraine

When Russian troops advance and fire their guns, Ukraine won’t have enough ammunition to fire back, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said in announcing the $300 million in additional aid.

The Pentagon has also had a separate Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative

or USAI

allowing the country to finance long-term contracts with the industry to produce new weapons for Ukraine.

Senior defense officials briefing reporters said the Pentagon was able to realize cost savings of about $300 million in some of those longer-term contracts and, given the battlefield situation, decided to use those savings to go ahead and send more weapons. Officials said the cost savings effectively offset the new package and keep replenishment spending underwater at $10 billion.

One of the officials said the package was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity unless Congress passes the supplemental spending bill, which includes about $60 billion in military aid to Ukraine, or more cost savings are found.

The The package

It is expected to include anti-aircraft missiles, artillery shells and armor systems, the official said.

Half of the American public approves of continued arms shipments to Ukraine

The aid announcement comes as Polish leaders are in Washington to pressure the US to break the impasse over replenishing funds for Ukraine at a crucial moment in the war. Polish President Andrzej Duda met with Democratic and Republican leaders in the House of Representatives and Senate on Tuesday and was expected to meet with the president

Joe

Biden later today.

Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson

(R-La.)

has so far refused to discuss the $95 billion package, which includes aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. In an effort to put pressure on the Republican chairman, Democrats in the House of Representatives have launched a protracted effort to force a vote through a discharge petition. This rarely successful procedure would require the support of a majority of lawmakers, or 218 members, to put the aid package to a vote.

The situation in Ukraine has become even more dire as frontline units are rationing ammunition while facing a much better supplied Russian force. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky

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has repeatedly begged Congress for help, but Republican leaders in the House of Representatives have been unwilling to put Ukrainian aid to a vote, saying any aid must first meet border security needs.

Pentagon officials said during budget talks Monday that they were confident the additional deficit could close the $10 billion shortfall.

The US has failed to track more than $1 billion in military aid to Ukraine, the watchdog says

If we don’t get the $10 billion, we have to find other resources, said Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks. At this time there was a lot of attention to the need for that supplement.

This is the second time in less than nine months that the Pentagon has found money to use for additional arms shipments to Ukraine. Last June, defense officials said they had overestimated the value of weapons the US had sent to Ukraine over the past two years by $6.2 billion.

At the time, Pentagon officials said an investigation found the military services used replacement costs instead of the book value of equipment taken from Pentagon stockpiles and sent to Ukraine. The discovery resulted in a surplus that the department used for presidential admissions packages until the end of December.

The United States has committed more than $44.9 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the start of the Biden administration, including more than $44.2 billion since the Russian invasion began on February 24, 2022.

The Pentagon says more high-tech weapons are heading to Ukraine

The Pentagon is running a $10 billion deficit in its replenishment account, partly due to inflationary pressures, and partly because the new systems the Pentagon is trying to replace old systems with are more expensive, such as the upcoming Precision Strike Missile, or PrSM, which the Pentagon has developed. The Army is purchasing to replace the Long-Range Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS.

The vast majority of this ammunition comes from army stockpiles due to the nature of conventional land in Ukraine.

The months without further U.S. support have hurt operations, and Ukrainian troops last month withdrew from the eastern city of Avdiivka, where outnumbered defenders had held off a Russian attack for four months.

CIA Director William Burns told Congress that entire Ukrainian units had told him in recent days that they had only a few dozen artillery shells and other munitions left. Burns called the withdrawal from Avdiivka a failure of ammunition resupply, not a failure of Ukrainian will.

Copp and Baldor write for the Associated Press. AP writers Ellen Knickmeyer and Stephen Groves contributed.