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Austin says US will support Ukraine ‘for as long as it takes’

by Brad Dress - 11/21/22 10:38 AM ET

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III gestures as he speaks during a media conference after a meeting of NATO defense ministers at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2022. Ukrainian leaders are begging the U.S. and Western allies for air defense systems and longer-range weapons to keep up the momentum in their counteroffensive against Russia and fight back against Moscow’s intensified attacks. Austin says allies are committed to sending weapons “as fast as we can physically get them there.”(AP Photo/Olivier Matthys)

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on Monday said the U.S. will continue to support Ukraine “for as long as it takes,” underscoring the Biden administration’s commitment to keep funding the nation in its war against Ukraine despite concerns a new Republican majority in the House may plug up spending.

Austin, speaking at a press conference in Jakarta, Indonesia, said the U.S. has provided more than $20 billion to Ukraine and the country has used it effectively.

“They’ve been very successful on the battlefield thus far,” Austin said. “We’ve seen them defeat the Russians in the battle of Kyiv, they’ve taken back Kharkiv, they have also most recently taken back the important town of Kherson.”

“We’ve seen a number of successes on the battlefield and as we go forward into the winter, we [will] try to prepare the Ukrainians for a fight in the winter and enable them to continue to keep pressure on their adversaries in the winter months,” the Defense secretary added. “Our focus is to support them throughout, their focus is to take back every inch of their sovereign territory.”

Questions have been raised over whether the U.S. government will continue to fund Ukraine in the amounts it has this year after Republicans took control of the House in the midterm elections and will assume a majority in the next Congress, which forms in January.

While funding Ukraine’s military has broad bipartisan support, there has been resistance to other forms of aid to the embattled country and how much of the funding is being accounted for.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) proposed a resolution last week that would audit funding for Ukraine.

The measure was backed by a group of GOP lawmakers, who have increasingly raised questions about how much money is being spent to help defend the European nation.

The White House last week asked Congress for an additional $31.7 billion to support Ukraine, which the Biden administration hopes legislators will pass in the lame duck session before the next Congress forms.

The administration noted that three-quarters of the funding for Ukraine that Congress has provided this year has already been used up.