The News
The U.S. delivered thousands of machine guns, sniper rifles, and rocket launchers confiscated from Iran to Ukraine last week, along with hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition to help Kyiv’s ailing war effort.
The weapons were captured from Iranian vessels that had been smuggling them to Houthi rebels in Yemen, and will be enough to equip one Ukrainian battalion with rifles, U.S. Central Command said in a statement Tuesday.
Ukraine is facing ammunition shortages that have forced its forces to slowly retreat, with Russian troops able to fire five times the number of artillery shells.
It comes as U.S. aid to Kyiv remains held up in Congress amid political infighting, with Ukrainian officials fearing Russia could make significant advances this summer unless Kyiv receives a surge in ammunition. House Speaker Mike Johnson is not expected to unveil his plan for funding Ukraine this week, Punchbowl reported.
Transferring confiscated weapons allows the Biden administration to bypass the congressional hold-up completely. The U.S previously transferred to Ukraine more than one million rounds of ammunition seized from vessels that were on their way to Yemen last year.
SIGNALS
Confiscated weapons can provide critical support
The U.S. and its allies have intercepted more than a dozen Iran weapons shipments since 2015, and although confiscated weaponry is not “a solution to all of Ukraine’s military needs, it will provide critical support,” former Pentagon official Jonathan Lord told CNN. But red tape is stopping more arms from being sent. Last week’s transfer did not include heavier weaponry such as ballistic missiles or cruise missiles, also confiscated by the U.S. “Bureaucratic hurdles are likely disincentivizing senior defense officials from sending the weapons” to Ukraine,” Lord and Andrea Kendall-Taylor of the Center for a New American Security wrote in The National Interest in March. Allowing U.S. President Joe Biden to designate captured Iranian weapons as U.S. stock would allow the administration to send the weapons to Ukraine without requiring a lengthy legal procedure, they argued.
Seizing frozen Russian assets gains cross-party support
The idea of seizing billions in confiscated or frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine has gained backing from the Biden administration as well as Republican leaders, who are under pressure from GOP hardliners not to spend more taxpayer money to support Ukraine. Speaker Johnson floated the idea in early April on Fox News. The U.S. holds an estimated $5 billion to $8 billion in frozen Russian assets out of an estimated $280 billion held in the West, the bulk of which is in Europe. But many EU countries continue to resist seizing the money, stating that the proposal rests on unsteady legal ground. The U.S. has previously transferred confiscated funds to pay for support for Ukrainian war veterans and to help repair Ukraine’s electrical grid, the Justice Department announced in February.