Army Secretary Christine Wormuth is pictured at the Pentagon on Thursday, Feb. 22, 2024. Wormuth said Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024, that the Army has used approximately $500 million in funding for units in Europe and Africa to continue training Ukrainian forces. (Susan Walsh/AP)
WASHINGTON — The Army has used approximately $500 million in funding for units in Europe and Africa to continue training Ukrainian forces to fight off invading Russian troops, service Secretary Christine Wormuth said.
The Army also could look to make spending cuts to various programs such as training exercises and new barracks projects as Congress faces a government shutdown and struggles to approve more aid for Ukraine and pass a defense budget for fiscal 2024, she said.
“By … late spring, early summer, we would have to make some difficult choices about other exercises,” Wormuth told reporters Tuesday at a meeting of the Defense Writers Group. “There’s a whole host of NATO exercises, for example, that our forces participate in.”
She said the Army’s budget has remained stagnant for at least a couple of years. If the service can’t get an approved budget for roughly $185 billion for 2024 or supplemental aid for Ukraine, they are “going to probably have to cancel some things.”
The U.S. has provided more than $44 billion in aid to Ukraine since the Russian invasion in February 2022, which has entered its third year.
The Pentagon announced its last military aid package for Ukraine — worth $250 million — on Dec. 27. The U.S. has participated in two Ukraine Contact Defense Group meetings so far in 2024 but it has not been able to contribute any additional aid.
The White House’s request for $110 in supplemental funding, including about $60 billion for Ukraine to keep its troops supplied with enough weapons and munitions to beat back invading Russian forces, remains stalled on Capitol Hill.
The Democrat-controlled Senate managed to pass a $95 billion foreign aid package a few weeks ago, including $60 billion for Ukraine. In the House, where Republicans hold the majority, funding for more aid is at an impasse.
A group of eight House lawmakers, led by Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., on Feb. 16 unveiled an alternative bill to the Senate’s foreign aid legislation. It includes more than $66 billion in defense-only funding for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan with provisions to address the U.S. southern border. The bill designates almost $48 billion for Ukraine aid.
The federal government has been operating on a temporary stopgap funding measure, known as a continuing resolution, since Oct. 1, the start of the fiscal year. It is unclear when Congress will pass a budget for fiscal 2024. A vote on extending the continuing resolution is needed before midnight Friday to avoid a partial government shutdown while the Defense Department funding is set to lapse on March 8.
However, congressional leaders on Wednesday reached a tentative deal to extend funding temporarily for one set of federal agencies through March 8 and for another set through March 22, according to The Associated Press.
Wormuth underscored that without funding the service cannot invest in the development of weapons or build new barracks, such as new living quarters planned for Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state.
“We won’t be able to build that barracks under a CR and we’ll probably have to build it at a higher price tag when we do get to build it because construction costs are going up,” the secretary said.
