U.S. President Joe Biden will be passing around $3.8 billion in the so-called Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA) to his successor — Donald Trump.
On the campaign trail, Trump has repeatedly criticized the Biden administration for providing Ukraine with military assistance, including through military shipments using the PDA.
Countering Trump's rhetoric, the outgoing administration stated its desire to use the available funds to help Kyiv withstand the ongoing Russian offensive in the country's east.
"We are determined — and it's fully my intent and the president's (Joe Biden) intent — to spend every cent that we have available from the $61 billion that was authorized by Congress in the supplemental appropriation," U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at the end of 2024.
The Kyiv Independent explains what the Presidential Drawdown Authority is, how it was used, and why the Biden administration failed to use up the funds provided to him by Congress.
President's military shipments
On Jan. 9, the outgoing president signed into force a military aid package for Ukraine worth $500 million. The aid package was said to be the last one before a new administration takes office on Jan. 20.
The last tranche included missiles for air defense, air-to-ground munitions, armored bridging systems, as well as equipment to support Ukraine's use of F-16 fighter jets.
The final aid package from the Biden administration was expected to be much larger, with nearly $4.3 billion in available funding open to the president's signing at the start of 2025.
Despite the ongoing attempts to frame Biden's military aid shipments as a charity, the PDA doesn't involve actual funds being spent.
The PDA allows Washington to supply Ukraine with military equipment from existing U.S. military stockpiles, considered to be surplus, which can begin arriving within days of approval.
The sums showing up in White House reports are an estimated value of the equipment provided and shipped to the recipient country.
Samantha de Bendern
Biden's broken promise
Concerns over the fact that Biden's administration won't be able to provide the promised funding arose months prior.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed the crucial foreign aid package, which included around $61 billion for Ukraine, in April 2024.
The bill was first introduced in October 2023, yet was delayed for months due to political infighting in the lower chamber of the U.S. Congress.
Following Trump's election victory, the Biden administration rushed military aid shipments to Ukraine. Soon, the U.S. aid packages to Kyiv shrank.
The Pentagon has reached the limit of weapons it can send to Ukraine monthly without affecting its own combat capability and started facing logistical problems in delivering weapons, the Wall Street Journal reported in late November, citing unnamed U.S. officials.
Pentagon spokesperson Major General Pat Ryder said in an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) published on Jan. 10 that Washington has to balance its own readiness needs, as well as look at what the U.S. do to support Ukraine.
Asked again, a few days later, why the U.S. was unable to provide all the PDA authorization to Ukraine, Ryder dodged the question, adding that "the authority will get passed to the next administration and it will be their call on whether they will choose to expend — or employ that authority to expend those funds."
"It could be a simple political calculation to avoid leaving the Trump administration with a completely zero balance (in aid to Ukraine)," Vladyslav Faraponov, the head of the Kyiv-based Institute of American Studies, told the Kyiv Independent.
Meanwhile, Daria Kaleniuk, co-founder of the Kyiv-based NGO Anti Corruption Action Center (ANTAC), said that Biden failed to fulfill his promise. She also blamed Ukraine's Defense Ministry for not being ready for such a scenario and not persuading the Pentagon to move forward with the promised aid.
Kaleniuk told the Kyiv Independent that the ANTAC and other experts had warned the Defense Ministry that Washington would run out of time to spend all the money and that it lacked the necessary military hardware requested by Ukraine, primarily air defense systems and missiles.
Kaleniuk suggested that the remaining U.S. funds could have been redirected to other arms assistance programs in case of better cooperation. Kyiv could also expand the list of weapons priorities to include lower-priority equipment that might still be available in stockpiles, she added.
"By the time we realized, it was too late," Kaleniuk said.
The Kyiv Independent sent a request for comments to Ukraine's Defense Ministry but has not received a response at the time of publication.
Kateryna Hodunova
Trump's $4 billion problem
The remaining PDA funds are now at Trump's disposal.
"It's really up to the incoming administration to decide what they use — what they decide to do with the remaining authority that's left," Pentagon's deputy spokesperson Sabrina Singh said on Jan. 8.
"It's really up to the incoming administration to decide what they use — what they decide to do with the remaining authority that's left."
When asked if the Biden administration is concerned about remaining funds and if there is a danger of a lag, she answered that Ukraine has "strong" bipartisan support within Congress.
Under the Biden administration, the U.S. has committed over $66.5 billion in security assistance to Ukraine, the Pentagon said.
Washington also provides Ukraine with aid through the USAI (Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative), a Pentagon-led program that supplies arms to Ukraine through contracts with U.S. defense companies. Another program, Foreign Military Financing (FMF), enables Ukraine to purchase weapons and munitions from U.S. defense companies.
Under Biden's administration, Ukraine was provided with the long-awaited High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), Patriot air-defense systems, and Abrams battle tanks.
But protracted decision-making on the provision of much-needed weapons, such as ATACMS long-range missiles and permission to use the provided missiles against targets deep inside Russia, slowed Ukraine's ability to fight back.
The holdup on approving U.S. aid in 2024 led to the fall of the key eastern city of Avdiivka in Donetsk Oblast, followed by the loss of several other major towns in the region.
Faraponov suggests that Trump will use the remaining money, but not immediately. Trump's administration may utilize it as leverage or as a bargaining chip in potential negotiations.
"The decision (to provide Ukraine with more aid) will be less popular with the Republican audience, in particular, who are generally skeptical of all international aid," he said. "For the Trump administration, it is less risky in terms of reputation to transfer these remaining funds than to promote another aid package in Congress."
Kaleniuk also believes that the remaining $3.8 billion may be used for Ukraine under the Trump administration.
"But the change of any administration implies a delay in decision-making. That is why we can get bogged down in their internal political struggle.
Oleg Sukhov
