United States – Lloyd Austin said Monday that the US will continue to deliver weapons to Ukraine despite the Russian onslaught against Ukraine at one of the most desperate times that the country has faced.

Upholding Support Amidst Congressional Gridlock

Austin and up to 50 defense ministers from around Europe and the rest of the world were discussing ways to increase military assistance to Ukraine on Monday as the Ukrainian military tried to protect its northeastern border from an expected Russian offensive while the Ukrainians were also launching a broad attack on Russian forces in Crimea.

“We are meeting at a moment of challenge,” Austin said, noting why the continuing commitment of these countries is important: Russia just launched another massive Kharkiv offensive and why it is important to keep weapons flowing week after week from the US.

The U. S. offered no new aid packages on Monday as the Ukrainian forces still keep voicing that weapons are just being supplied in a drip into the war-torn country after being frozen for months due to congressional gridlock over funding. Pentagon officials said that weapons that had been pre-positioned in Europe started to reach Ukraine shortly after the funding was signed.

How much of that has made it to some of the front lines where the Russian troops have upped the ante is unknown.

Russian Offensive Tactics and Ukrainian Resistance

Russian President Vladimir Putin while visiting china on Friday that Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region will establish a buffer zone, but there will be no attempt to seize the regional capital.

Ukrainian forces have been trying to block the Russian advancement in the Kharkiv region and mounting counter-offensive operations in Crimea, where they targeted the military infrastructure facilities on the Black Sea coast and Sevastopol city.

Ukraine has also faced a shortage of troops due to the ongoing war, which has entered its third year and is not going to end anytime soon. To boost the number of soldiers, the President of Ukraine signed two laws: the first one enabled convicts to go to the army, and the second one provided for a fivefold increase in fines for draft evasion. The highly disputed law on mobilization will come into force on Saturday.

US Military Aid Efforts

Three weeks after President Joe Biden signed the USD 95 billion humanitarian aid bill, the US has sent USD 1.4 billion worth of weapons it removed from its stockpiles and officially committed USD 6 billion in funding through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative. USAI works in longer terms to defend the defense industry, which means that weapons could take months or years to arrive.

In recent packages, the U.S. has agreed to send HIMARS and rockets for it as well as munitions for Patriot and NASAMS systems, artillery systems and other ammunition, and numerous types of armored vehicles, including Bradley and Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles.

The U.S. is also providing additional coastal and riverine patrol boats, trailers, demolition munitions, high-speed anti-radiation missiles, protective gear, spare parts, and other weapons and equipment.

State Department Approval for Additional Aid

The State Department also approved a proposed emergency sale of High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) worth USD 30 million to Ukraine. The state reported that Ukraine requested the purchase of three rocket systems with the support of the German government.

Cumulative US Assistance to Ukraine

The U.S. has now given about USD 50 billion to the Military assistance of USD 6 billion to Ukraine since Russia attacked it in February 2022.

United States: The Biden government announced on Thursday that it would speed up the immigration court cases of some singular adult people illegally crossing the US-Mexico border under a new program that was part of the larger effort to reduce illegal immigration, according to senior administration officials.

Implementation Details

Court dates for individuals residing in single apartments and around five cities – Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, L. A., and New York City – could be put on a “recent arrivals docket”, officials in the administration said in a call with the press. US immigration judges will be trying to clear their dockets for asylum claims within six months (i.e., 180 days) instead of big backlogs that can now become years long because of the current situation, the officials informed, as reported by Reuters.

Political Landscape and Border Security

A Democrat and current U. S. President, Joe Biden, is facing reelection in November, in which he has strengthened his policies on border security as of late, and immigration has risen as a red-line issue. Biden’s democratic rival, former President Donald Trump, has referred to Biden’s method as soft tactics and favors very strict policies again.

Call for Congressional Support

US Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, in a statement, urged Congress to finish passing a package that would increase border enforcement, which was approved by a partisan Senate.

“This administrative step is no substitute for the sweeping and much-needed changes that the bipartisan Senate bill would deliver,” Mayorkas said.

Biden administration officials refused to answer the question of the number of people who could be placed in the expedited docket processing. Still, at least ten judges will be the starting officers, as this one official confirmed.

Regional Measures Against Irregular Migration

In a move related to irregular migration across the territory of Nicaragua, the United States put visa restrictions on over 250 government officials and sanctions on three Nicaraguan entities on the day of Wednesday, ordered by the Biden administration, as reported by Reuters.

The administration also aims to complete the rule later this year that would fast-track asylum officers to promptly reject eligibility for migrants convicted of serious crimes with ties to terrorism or pose any threat to public safety.

United States: The Biden administration has informed the important lawmakers that it would send over USD 1 billion of additional weapons and ammunition to Israel, three congressional aides said on Tuesday. Nevertheless, it was not immediately discovered how soon the weapons would be delivered.

Background on Arms Hold

This is the first arms shipment to Israel to be made public since the administration put another arms transfer, which consisted of 3,500 bombs, each weighing up to 2,000 pounds, on hold this month. The Biden administration, on the ground, because of the worries about the civilian casualties in Gaza, has said that it stopped the bomb transfer to the Israeli side to keep Israel from using those particular munitions in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, which is very crowded, as reported by Associated Press.

Details of Arms Package

The congressional aides said the package announced on Tuesday is worth about USD 700 million for tank ammunition, USD 500 million for tactical vehicles, and USD 60 million for mortar rounds. They didn’t disclose their identity and spoke anonymously to discuss arms transfer that has not yet been made public.

There was no sign of the time when the arms would be sent. The two congressional aides said that the shipment is not part of the long-delayed foreign aid package that Congress passed, and President Joe Biden signed last month. It was not known if the shipment was the newest batch from the ongoing arms sale or something new.

Bipartisan Views and Criticisms

Both sides of the political spectrum have been against the Biden administration for supporting the military of Israel, which is already fighting the seven-month-old war against Hamas in Gaza, while Biden is facing reelection against former President Donald Trump.

Some of Biden’s Democratic colleagues have urged him to stop the export of offensive weapons to Israel in order to force the U. S. ally to do more for the protection of the Palestinian civilians. The protests on college campuses in the U. S. have made the message this spring really clear.

Republican Support

Republican lawmakers have used the administration’s pause on the bomb transfers as a reason to say that any weakening of the U. S. support for Israel — its main ally in the Middle East — weakens that country as it fights with Hamas and other Iran-backed groups. In the House, they are going to push the bill this week to make it a law that Israel has to deliver the offensive weapons.

Although the first ban on the bomb shipment was lifted, Biden and administration officials have stated that they will still support other weapons deliveries and overall military support to Israel, which is the largest recipient of U. S. military aid.

Biden will see to it that “Israel has all of the military means it needs to defend itself against all of its enemies, including Hamas,” national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters Monday. “For him, this is very straightforward: He’s going to continue to provide Israel with all of the capabilities it needs, but he does not want certain categories of American weapons used in a particular type of operation in a particular place. And again, he has been clear and consistent with that.”

The Wall Street Journal first reported the plans for the USD 1 billion weapons package to Israel.

“I have a general rule of supporting pro-Israel legislation unless it includes a poison pill — like cuts to domestic policy,” he said.

Opposition to Legislative Restrictions

Besides the written veto threat, the White House has been in touch with different lawmakers and congressional aides about the legislation, as an administration official said, as reported by the Associated Press.

“We extremely, extremely oppose attempts to limit the President’s ability to use the American security assistance consistent with the U. S. foreign policy and national security objectives,” Karine Jean-Pierre said this week, adding that the administration is going to spend “every single cent” of the national security supplemental package that was signed into law by Biden last month by Congress.