Pentagon mulls new way to arm Ukrainians if Russia invades

The Pentagon is looking to get military aid to Ukrainians via ground delivery to help Kyiv with a resistance effort from within the country should Russia invade, national security adviser Jake Sullivan told House members in a private call Monday. 

Sullivan said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin wants the option of land routes over air delivery to provide Ukrainians with the lethal aid if Russia launches an attack, a House source confirmed to The Hill. 

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Austin will likely discuss the topic with NATO leaders this week when he travels to Brussels and Eastern Europe. He is set to leave Washington on Tuesday to meet with senior military and government leaders in Belgium, Poland and Lithuania and will attend the alliance’s ministerial conference, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told reporters on Monday.

The Biden administration, which has approved about $650 million of military equipment to Kyiv in the past year, has been under immense pressure to rush security assistance to Ukraine as Russia has amassed more than 130,000 of its troops near its border. 

More recently, the administration approved a $200 million package to Ukraine, which included “Javelin anti-tank missiles, other anti-armor systems, grenade launchers, munitions, and non-lethal equipment essential to Ukraine’s front line defenders,” the Pentagon said in a statement as the equipment was being delivered last month.   

The U.S. has also allowed the Baltic states, including Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, to provide Kyiv with American-made anti-armor and anti-aircraft missiles. 

In addition, the Pentagon has ordered 6,000 U.S. troops to deploy or reposition to Poland, Germany and Romania to help the NATO allies respond to a possible Russian invasion that officials are warning could happen any day.  

The tensions over a potential attack have reached such a fever pitch that Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced on Monday that the U.S. is shuttering its embassy in Kyiv and temporarily relocating its operations to Lviv “due to the dramatic acceleration in the buildup of Russian forces.” 

Blinken stressed that U.S. officials remain engaged with the Ukrainian government and are continuing “intensive diplomatic efforts to deescalate the crisis.”