| Balancing the U.S. budget for Ukraine aid |
| The Pentagon has significantly reduced its estimate of the value of weapons it has sent to Ukraine, freeing up at least $3 billion to supply Ukrainian troops with arms. The calculation comes as the Biden administration has faced intensifying pressure to explain how it intended to continue supporting Ukraine without asking Congress to replenish its budget. |
| Pentagon and State Department officials yesterday told congressional staff members that they had discovered an accounting issue that could make more resources available before Ukraine’s planned counteroffensive this summer. They had realized their mistake almost two months ago, a senior White House official said. |
| Instead of placating Congress’s concerns, the revelation was met with frustration and anger, as some lawmakers criticized the Biden administration for what they said was an extremely troublesome error. They called on the administration to “make up for this precious lost time” by sending long-range missiles and cluster munitions to Ukraine, a move that the administration has resisted doing. |
| Go deeper: Administration officials said their mistake was one of improper valuation, explaining that they had been calculating the price of each item based on how much replacing it with new equipment would cost, instead of on sale value, which is lower. |
| In other news from the war: |
| President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine is scheduled to appear in person at the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan, this weekend.Russia attacked Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, for the ninth time this month. One person was killed by missile strikes in Odesa, a southern city.An explosion derailed a freight train in the Russian-occupied region of Crimea, the latest in a series of blasts to hit Russian infrastructure. |
