US defence chief says Washington will not let Ukraine fail

RAMSTEIN

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin promised Tuesday that the United States will not let Ukraine fail, even as further aid remains stalled in Congress and Kiev's forces face shortages of munitions.

The Republican-led House of Representatives has been blocking $60 billion in assistance for Ukraine, and the United States has warned that a recent $300 million package would only last a few weeks.

The "United States will not let Ukraine fail", Austin said at the opening of a meeting in Germany of Ukraine's international supporters.

"We remain determined to provide Ukraine with the resources that it needs to resist the Kremlin's aggression," he added.

Washington announced $300 million in assistance for Ukraine last week, but Austin said it was only possible due to savings on recent purchases by the Pentagon.

"We were only able to support this much-needed package by identifying some unanticipated contract savings", Austin said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a statement the day before that it is "critically important for us that the Congress soon completes all the necessary procedures and makes a final decision" on aid for Kiev.

Top U.S. military officer General Charles "CQ" Brown told journalists en route to the Ukraine meeting that Kiev's troops are "having to pay attention to their supply rates, and how they execute."

There is an "incremental kind of back and forth between Ukraine and Russia", with "incremental gains on both sides", Brown said.

But he noted that "even as the Russians have gained territory, they do it at a pretty big cost in number of casualties, like in personnel, but also in number of pieces of equipment that are being taken out."

Austin said in his remarks Tuesday that "at least 315,000 Russian troops have been killed or wounded" since Russia launched its all-out invasion of Ukraine in 2022 -- a figure that was previously reported at the end of last year.

Moscow has also "squandered up to $211 billion to equip, deploy, maintain, and sustain its imperial aggression against Ukraine," he said.

Austin and other U.S. officials have spearheaded the push for international support for Ukraine, quickly forging a coalition to back Kiev after Russia invaded and coordinating aid from dozens of countries.

Washington is by far Kiev's biggest donor of security aid, committing tens of billions of dollars to aid Kiev since February 2022.