The Biden administration will give its final round of military aid to Ukraine, the Defense Department announced Thursday. The $500 million adds to $122 billion in security assistance provided by the 57 countries that joined forces in 2022 as the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, $61.4 billion of which has been provided by the United States.

What You Need To Know

  • The Biden administration will give its final round of military aid to Ukraine, the Defense Department announced Thursday

  • The $500 million adds to $122 billion in security assistance provided by the 57 countries that joined forces in 2022 as the Ukraine Defense Contact Group

  • The United States has provided $61.4 billion in military assistance to Ukraine since Russia's invasion in February 2022

  • The $500 million is distributed through a Presidential Drawdown Authority package that allows the Defense Department to quickly send military equipment to foreign countries

As part of a Presidential Drawdown Authority package that allows the Defense Department to quickly send military equipment to foreign countries, the U.S. will provide air-defense missiles, ammunition, air-to-ground munitions and other equipment. 

“I am determined to do all I can to help Ukraine live in freedom and security — and to forge a more just and decent world,” Ukraine Defense Contact Group Minister Boris Pistorious said Thursday at the U.S. Ramstein Air Base in Germany, where U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy were both in attendance. 

“We all have a stake in ensuring that autocrats cannot place their imperial ambitions ahead of the bedrock rights of free and sovereign peoples,” Pistorious said. “Ukraine is waging a just war of self-defense. And it is one of the great causes of our time.”

Next month marks the three-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. More than 43,000 Ukrainian soldiers have died, and 370,000 have been injured. Nearly 600,000 Russian soldiers have died or been injured in the conflict, according to Zelenskyy.