(Bloomberg) — The US is planning to ask NATO allies to contribute more money to a key weapons-delivery program for Ukraine, people familiar with the matter said, a sign that US defense support for Kyiv continues despite lingering tension between US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The new funding push suggests the Pentagon hasn’t allowed the heated rhetoric between Washington and Kyiv to interfere with the crucial role American defense firms play in providing Ukraine with weapons. Several key European nations — including Spain, France and Italy — are also holding elections this year or next. It wasn’t immediately clear how much money the US is seeking but the people said there is a funding gap of about $2 billion for weapons packages that have already been approved.
The request could come as soon as this month for more funding to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List, or PURL, according to the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations. They said the US has already signaled to some allies that it will ask for the money. They said the US has continued delivering weapons even before allies have provided the money to pay for them, and the shortfall could grow if the Pentagon decided to make more deliveries. The US has even kept weapons flowing to Ukraine when allied funding has lagged behind the pace of US deliveries, the people said. The disconnect between the defense assistance and Trump’s comments has created confusion among US allies, and at times made it more difficult to persuade allies to pay for new weapons, particularly as Europeans grow wary of funding a war that has dragged into its fifth year, some of the people said. Last month, the US threatened to halt PURL deliveries in response to Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy infrastructure, according to people familiar. The threat wasn’t carried out and the program continued operating, the people said.
