Stephen Parker, Boeing’s interim president and chief executive officer, told reporters at the Paris Air Show there had been “no impact at all” on the firm’s assignment of transforming a pair of 747-8 aircraft into VC-25B Air Force One planes.

At a press conference, Parker largely managed to sidestep the hot potato that is the controversial Qatari gift to Trump, saying Boeing was instead “laser focused” on achieving the requisite safety and other certifications of the two aircraft for which the company is on the hook.

Trump’s surprise focus on using a Qatari-donated jet for the presidential transport aircraft has sparked multiple controversies, including concerns about the feasibility of quickly adapting it for presidential use, its cost and the possible impropriety of accepting such a gift.

Boeing has been working on the VC-25B program for about a decade, but the planes have repeatedly fallen behind schedule amid supply chain issues and a lack of properly cleared workers. They were originally expected for delivery in 2024 but now are not expected to be done until 2029 — or earlier if the Air Force scales back on the program’s requirements. Trump has repeatedly voiced his displeasure with Boeing’s delays.

A number of details about the status and terms of the gift fro Qatar, and how the plane would be adapted, remain unknown.

The Pentagon on May 21 announced that it had accepted the aircraft. But a week later, The Washington Post reported the agreement for the transfer had not yet been finalized.

A contentious exchange over the Qatar plane developed between Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., during a June 11 Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing. Hegseth first said he could not provide specifics about a potential Air Force One in the public hearing, before acknowledging a memorandum of understanding with Qatar over the jet had not yet been signed.

Also unanswered at the Paris Air Show were questions regarding a potential role for Boeing in refitting the Qatari 747, a plane fashioned to be a flying palace rather than the airborne command-and-control center that Air Force One is supposed to be.

“We’ll support the president in any way,” Parker said.

L3Harris may have a role in adapting the Qatari plane, according to a Wall Street Journal report in May. L3Harris has declined to comment.

The Air Force on May 21, following the Pentagon’s premature announcement of the acceptance of the Qatar plane, said it was preparing to award a contract to convert the 747-8 into an Air Force One.

Multiple Democratic lawmakers have voiced their displeasure to Hegseth over his refusal to detail matters such as cost and timing of the modification work.

And some lawmakers, including Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., have also blasted Trump’s plans to transfer the jet to his presidential library toward the end of his administration, saying it would be a waste of money to so heavily modify an aircraft that would only be used for a limited time.

Some experts have warned adapting a jet from Qatar — even a free one — into Air Force One would cost at least $1 billion to add self-defense capabilities and countermeasures, encrypted communications and command-and-control capabilities that would allow the president to direct U.S. forces in a catastrophic emergency.

In a June 5 hearing, Air Force Secretary Troy Meink estimated it would cost less than $400 million.

“We can have remote carriers out of that project much much earlier,” the air force chief told Defense News in an interview, referring to a class of drones that is envisioned to accompany the FCAS program’s central, sixth-generation warplane on future missions. “And we need to have it much, much earlier.”

Gerhartz’s comments reflect a certain degree of angst in military circles here about the fluid target date for the German-Franco-Spanish project – currently pegged at “2040-plus,” he said in an interview – which could risk putting Berlin behind the curve.

Asked about what timing he had in mind, Gerhartz demurred, saying only the contracting for the FCAS drones was far enough along to support the fielding of unmanned technologies before the totality of the program comes online.

Remote carriers is catch-all term for different types of drones with tasks that range from reconnaissance to electronic jamming to strike. Smaller ones also could be used to swarm enemy air defense positions with the goal of overwhelming their radars and targeting software.

The idea is for the pilot of the FCAS program’s manned warplane, dubbed the Next Generation Fighter, to command all unmanned elements from the cockpit depending on the nature of a given mission.

Germany, with lead contractor Airbus Defence and Space, has the lead for remote carrier development within the overall program. The German and French arms of pan-European missile maker MBDA are also involved, along with Spain’s SATNUS consortium representing local specialists Sener, GMV and Tecnobit.

According to MBDA, the company envisions leaning on existing missile technologies in developing its remote carrier offerings. They include the Taurus cruise missile – sought by Ukraine for its defense against Russia, as well as the Spear 3, Metor and Scalp missiles.

Gerhartz said he also wants to push the tempo on a dedicated strike drone for Germany. The larger vehicle class is internationally dubbed a UCAV, short for unmanned combat aerial vehicle.

France’s national lead for FCAS, Dassault Aviation, has been developing such a weapon for years, in parallel to the trinational program, Gerhartz noted.

“Now were are looking for partners to push UCAV, or loyal wingman, on our side,” he said. “We need that earlier.”

After the interview, when asked about details, a Luftwaffe spokesman wrote in a statement that the service is looking for “synergies” with partner nations grappling with the same problem of integrating manned and unmanned strike platforms into scenarios for “collaborative combat.”

Meanwhile, the FCAS program has had a wobbly history, mainly fueled by mistrust between Airbus and Dassault that has at times bled into the bilateral political discourse between Germany and France over the usefulness of any bilateral defense programs at all.

According to a Nov. 1 report in the London-based Times, citing unnamed sources, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was considering abandoning the €100 billion ($107.3 billion) program in favor a British-led rival effort dubbed Tempest because he had grown impatient with what he viewed as too capricious of a partner in Paris.

A spokeswoman for the German ministry of defense said Berlin is sticking with FCAS, calling reports to the contrary “false.”

Contractors began building an demonstrator in March, putting the project on a “good path,” the spokeswoman said.

The novelties come as arms manufacturers tune their lineups to the immediate experience of the brutal, close-range fighting in Ukraine, a trend on display at the DSEI defense trade show held last week in London.

Germany’s Rheinmetall, for example, is reviving a Cold War concept of bouncing mines in its proposed Area Defence Weapon. The system, which resembles a small beer keg sitting on radial stabilizers, uses a combination of sensors to verify that a tank is passing by only to launch itself into the air and drill a 155-millimeter artillery munition into the vehicle’s topside on the way down.

The company said the weapon, ready for use in a few years, could be used in combination with traditional anti-tank mines, where the ADW munition goes after mine-clearing vehicles to keep adversaries’ armored columns from advancing through mined areas.

The re-emergence of mine warfare brings to mind the situation on the frontlines of Ukraine’s defense against Russia, described in a recent Washington Post report as the world’s most mine-contaminated piece of land.

Rheinmetall, for its part, doesn’t refer to the Area Defence Weapon as a mine because the units can be turned off remotely or be programmed to let friendly forces through, with a human operator involved in the process of arming the system.

“Battlefield barriers, and anti-tank mines in particular, have been taken out of commission by NATO forces almost completely since the end of the Cold War,” a company representative explained. “The re-building of that capability is currently the subject of analyses and concepts.”

Meanwhile, Finnish company Insta is throwing its Steel Eagle shrapnel-throwing drone into the ring for meeting a Ukrainian need for killing large numbers of foot soldiers on the open battlefield with fewer scarce munitions fired as they repel Russian invaders and take back territory.

The quadcopter drone carries a fragmentation charge, which notably started its developmental life as a bouncy mine à la ADW, over infantry positions, shredding fighters with 3,000 projectiles so forceful they even penetrate thin armor, according to the company.

Steel Eagle can spray an area as large as a third of a soccer pitch with enough fragments that every square meter will get an average of one-and-a-half projectiles. The drone can also programmed to fall down to a low altitude right before exploding for a denser spray, Tuure Lehtoranta, a vice president at Insta’s defense unit, told Defense News.

Ukrainian officials have been pleading with Western allies for controversial cluster munitions that deal a similar effect, with the United States agreeing this summer to deliver some of the Pentagon’s old stocks.

According to videos circulated on social media, frontline troops have used drones to drop grenades on Russian soldiers, an effect that Lehtoranta said is too “pointed” for the kind of mass punch envisioned by Ukrainian commanders.

The company says its primary target is equipping its home forces of Finland with the Steel Eagle capability.

“There is interest not limited to Finland,” the executive said.

While negotiations over the exact language continue, Austin said the pledge would emerge from a meeting of NATO members at their summit in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius in July. NATO members, he said, are “upgrading our defense plans, putting more forces at higher levels of readiness.”

“In Vilnius, our leaders will agree on a new defense investment pledge to ensure that the alliance has the resources to carry out these new plans,” Austin told reporters after a meeting of NATO defense ministers. “We look forward to working with our valued allies to ensure that we all do even more to invest in our shared security.”

NATO allies agreed in 2014, after Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, to halt the spending cuts they had made after the Cold War and move toward spending 2% of GDP on defense by 2024. That pledge is due next year, and while NATO is working on a new target, some officials said there wasn’t a firm agreement.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Wednesday urged the 30 member countries to commit to spending at least 2% of their gross domestic product, or GDP, on defense by a set date. The comments came after Stoltenberg chaired a meeting of NATO defense ministers, where a first high-level discussion on the issue was held.

“What is obvious is that if it was right to commit to spend 2% in 2014, it is even more right now because we live in a more dangerous world,” Stoltenberg said.

“There is a full-fledged war going on in Ukraine, in Europe, and then we see the persistent threat of terrorism and we see also the challenges that China is posing to our security. So it is obvious we need to spend more,” he said.

Only nine countries met the pledge, according to NATO estimates for last year, but 18 have plans to do so. The U.S. spends 3.47% of its GDP on defense, spending more than all other allies combined.

“I think we should move from regarding the 2% as a ceiling, to regard the 2% of GDP as a floor and minimum,” Stoltenberg said. He added that this should not be a “long term perspective” and “that we need immediate commitment to spend 2% as a minimum when we see the needs for ammunition, for air defense, for training, for readiness, for high-end capabilities.”

According to a defense official from a NATO ally in Europe, there was consensus among leaders that 2% is a floor, but it’s unlikely that the Vilnius summit will yield an increase in percentage. Allies may instead agree repeating the 2% pledge, but in stronger terms.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told reporters in Brussels that Berlin would consider the existing pledge as a “base” from which to grow future spending, though details have yet to be agreed within Germany’s coalition government.

Germany’s share of defense spending currently hovers around 1.3% to 1.4%, and the country’s spending profile makes meeting even the existing goal in time doubtful. Expenditures have risen steadily in recent years, to now roughly €50 billion per year, or $53 billion, plus a €100 billion special defense fund created after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The special fund is largely spoken for with big-ticket investments including F-35s and the replenishment of soldier equipment, ammunition and weapon stocks. Analysts have said the base budget, deliberately kept flat while the multiyear special fund is in effect, must also grow to enable a wholesale rejuvenation of Germany’s defense posture.

Discussions about a more significant spending uptick in Germany are always tied to the question of how the country’s defense bureaucracy and industry can translate potentially tens of billions of additional euros into actual capabilities.

While former U.S. President Donald Trump pressed the issue of burden sharing in aggressive terms, the Biden administration has taken a more encouraging tack while also emphasizing NATO unity. President Joe Biden, in a speech at last year’s summit in Madrid, hailed countries by name that were meeting or intending to meet the 2% target.

NATO leaders at the ministerial also discussed plans to implement new stockpile guidelines, aimed at boosting allied arsenals while continuing to fill Kyiv’s. On Wednesday, Stoltenberg said the NATO leaders addressed ways to boost industrial capacity and replenish stockpiles of armaments and munitions sent to Ukraine.

“NATO Allies are providing unprecedented support to help Ukraine push back against Russia’s aggression. At the same time, this is consuming an enormous quantity of Allied ammunition, and depleting our stockpiles,” Stoltenberg said. “Allies agree on the need to work hand-in-hand with the defense industry to ramp up our industrial capacity.”

To that end, the U.S. has been leading talks among NATO’s national armaments directors.

“As we rush to support Ukraine in the critical months ahead, we must all replenish our stockpiles to strengthen our deterrence and defense for the long term,” Austin said.

With reporting by The Associated Press.

WASHINGTON and ROME — Germany’s promise early this year to send tanks to Ukraine marked the country’s latest concession and provided a cap to the gradual escalation in the kind of equipment allies were supplying.

Indeed, when Russia invaded Ukraine last February, its allies resisted pleas for offensive aid and followed a narrow definition of protective equipment. In Berlin, leaders initially shied away from aid that didn’t fit the German definition of “defensive.”

That’s changed, with Germany now pledging to deliver Leopard 2 battle tanks and approving other countries’ requests to follow suit. Chancellor Olaf Scholz also recently authorized supplying infantry fighting vehicles to help push Russian forces out of occupied Ukraine.

The evolving approach fits a conflict as fluid as it is unpredictable.

Now, a collection of Western tank-type vehicles is slated to arrive on the front lines this spring, with training already underway in donor countries. The vehicles carry the hope of enabling battlefield wins for Ukrainian forces that will lead to some kind of war-ending scenario — if the weapons arrive in time.

Scholz has told Tagesspiegel newspaper he wants Russian President Vladimir Putin to answer one question: “How is the world getting out of this terrible situation?”

Defense News spoke with national security analysts, lawmakers and retired officials, asking each how the conflict could end.

Their answers are glum: The war will be expensive, cost lives and likely last at least a few years — or even become interminable. It will tax the American and European defense industries, especially when it comes to munitions, and could cause economic ruin in Russia. All this while the possibility of nuclear escalation remains.

And they said winning will depend on a Congress with the resolve to ensure continued support to Ukraine. But even then, the very concept of victory may be inaccurate, they warned.

“For this year, it would be very, very difficult to militarily eject the Russian forces from all — every inch of Ukraine or Russian-occupied Ukraine,” Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the U.S. military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters during a visit to Germany last month. “That doesn’t mean it can’t happen, doesn’t mean it won’t happen, but it’d be very, very difficult.”

Milley has insisted the war will likely end at the negotiating table — at some point. Officials and experts expect a bloody spring, as Russia sends new conscripts to the front line and Ukraine tries to repel an offensive while mounting its own.

As the war enters its second year, the spigot of military aid is still gushing. But industrial capacities are spotty, and nations have started to scrutinize how much equipment they can spare while maintaining their own self-defense requirements and that of NATO.

At the same time, election season in the United States — Ukraine’s most important backer — stands to spur arguments that a war in Europe of unknown duration is a costly nuisance for America.

How long a war?

Asked about the likely duration of the Ukraine war, analysts in the United States and Europe made similar predictions, with timelines running from months to years to “indefinite.”

Yohann Michel, a research analyst in Berlin with the International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank, anticipates “long months” ahead, while Michael Kofman, the research program director in the Russia Studies Program at the Center for Naval Analyses in Washington, expects additional years of fighting.

“Wars typically tend to go on longer than people expect or hope, but especially interstate conflicts of this length,” Kofman said. “History tells us that wars which go on this long … are likely to become protracted, lasting several years.”

Perhaps Italian analyst Lucio Caracciolo was the most pessimistic of all. “This war will last indefinitely, with long pauses for cease-fires,” he said.

“It will only stop when Ukraine or Russia or both collapse, since for both sides this is a matter of life or death,” added Caracciolo, the editor of Italian geopolitics publication Limes.

Peter Roberts, a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London, said there are different ways to define the end of a war: “the end of the kinetic phase” versus “the end of a Georgia-style frozen conflict or a Korea-like situation that runs for years.”

“I would love to think the kinetic phase could end in 2023, but I suspect we could be looking at another three years with this scale of fighting,” Roberts said.

Michel added there are as-yet-unknown factors that will determine the end of the conflict.

“Who will be first to launch the next offense? What role will the weather play?” he wondered. “There is the problem of ammunition — the first side to have a shortage will be in trouble. While there has been no real European program to increase production, will Russian stocks be replenished by China?”

And long, exhaustive fighting carries its own risks, according to Benjamin Jensen, a war gaming expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. That’s because the longer conflicts last, the more they exhaust finite resources and, hence, the parties are more willing to gamble.

“Even technologically advanced, wealthy states in the Middle East eventually reached a point where they’re lobbing missiles at civilian cities, openly using chemical weapons and fighting in waves — just people rushing across the field getting shot at,” Jensen said.

Either side may act boldly if it winds up on the ropes and needs an exit strategy. Ukraine, Jensen suggested, might try a spectacular special operation to assassinate a Kremlin official, or Russia could decide to use — or simply test — nuclear weapons.

In Jensen’s view, even the collapse of Russia’s conventional force or a traditional Ukrainian victory may not mean the war is over; either could lead to nuclear escalation by Russia.

On the offensive this spring

On Feb. 24, 2022, Russian forces attacked Ukraine without frozen ground to support their armored vehicles, which meant they had to stick to roads, where they stood out as easy targets.

But this winter, they’re expected to launch attacks across open plains, which would be harder to defeat, said Daniel Rice, a former U.S. Army captain who last year became a special adviser to Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the commander of the Ukrainian military.

“The worry is that a large Russian offensive action could punch through, and there’s a lot of worry they could take Kyiv,” said Rice, now president of the Thayer Leadership consulting group in West Point, New York. “People are waking up to the reality that you need to give offensive weapons to end this war — at least to win it.”

The challenge now is training and equipping an armored force big enough and sophisticated enough to envelop Russia’s fighting force.

Ukrainian soldiers will have to learn how to operate and sustain the latest batch of military aid, which includes Marder and Bradley infantry fighting vehicles from Germany and the United States, as well as Challenger 2, Leopard 2 and Abrams tanks from the U.K., Germany and the U.S., respectively. Also in the mix is a pledge from France to ship AMX-10 RC light, wheeled tanks.

“It’s a lot to do in a short period of time,” Rice said. “Just because they have just the right vehicles doesn’t mean you’re going to be able to take a major future offensive action. But … these Ukrainians have surprised the world every time.”

Retired Maj. Gen. Patrick Donahoe, a former commander of the U.S. Army’s maneuver warfare school at Fort Benning, Georgia, said Western upgrades offer Ukraine the chance to dominate the close fight with Russian adversaries and conclude the tactical fighting to its advantage.

Russian forces are already trying to slow down tanks in Ukraine with mines, trenches, and pyramidical, concrete “dragon’s teeth,” a type of fortification not seen in combat since World War II. Ukrainian forces, once equipped and trained for combined arms warfare and tank tactics, will be “designed to punch a hole through a defensive network,” Donahoe predicted.

But the sizable swaths of terrain Ukraine wants to liberate will take time, and to even build the necessary forces will take six months, Donahoe estimated.

The recent arms donations — Kyiv still wants fighter aircraft and long-range tactical missiles — are predicated on the assumption they’ll force Moscow to end its invasion and begin negotiations because military costs are too high. That objective has coexisted with an expectation that Putin’s government will probably never stop fighting, as losing the war could spell the end to his political power.

Pressure points

In the course of the past year, Putin’s domestic propaganda strategy has morphed from a message of “fight the Nazis” in Ukraine to “fight the West” there, said Stefan Meister, a Russia and Eastern Europe expert at the Berlin-based German Council on Foreign Relations. “The narrative is the great struggle of the Cold War,” he said, a framing that has helped to attract new recruits.

And the near-total control of information by the government is making dissent difficult. “Those who are against the war have left, and those who remain are adapting,” Meister said.

Past attempts to squeeze the will for war out of Moscow economically also didn’t yield the immediate results for which experts hoped. Cracks may begin to appear this year, however.

“The consensus is that ordinary Russians will start feeling it this year,” said Charles Lichfield, an economics and sanctions analyst at the Washington-based Atlantic Council. “But Russians have a huge degree of tolerance for economic pain.”

Moscow has proved resourceful when it comes to building autonomy into critical goods, Lichfield explained. For example, the tactic of repurposing dishwasher electronics for weapons, mocked in the West as a sign of desperation, probably means “somebody thought about that from the beginning,” he said.

One area to watch is Russia’s payment of pensions. An inability to do so could foster economic discontent capable of turning public opinion against the war, Lichfield told Defense News.

“It would have to get pretty bad for the Russians to get there,” he said, adding that there’s no way of knowing how many reserves the government stashed away after years of fat checks from energy sales.

After imposing sanctions and export controls, Lichfield expects the West’s latest economic pressure point — oil price caps — to yield results because the Russian economy is so tightly linked to the energy market.

Which weapons will Washington send?

The United States, as Ukraine’s most important military supporter, remains the center of gravity when it comes to an eventual outcome for the conflict. American leadership has so far been largely united in their support for Kyiv.

Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, expects the war to end at the negotiating table, but said serious diplomacy hasn’t begun because Putin is still clinging to “maximalist” goals.

“The ultimate end to this is the Ukrainians take back as much pre-Feb. 24 territory as they can get, force Putin to the bargaining table, and then ultimately Ukraine would have to compromise somewhat on issues like Crimea and portions of the east and arrange for solid security guarantees going forward,” Smith told Defense News in a phone interview.

“Right now, the Russians are talking about a major offensive in the next four months,” he added. “It seems like the Russians are at least thinking that they have some possibility of succeeding in that effort. I am skeptical.”

For its part, the Biden administration has started deliberations around the thorny question of whether helping Ukraine should entail retaking Crimea, which Russia seized and then annexed in 2014.

“That would be an extraordinarily risky thing to do,” Smith said. “But it’s important to have those conversations. And from what I understand, high levels of our government have talked about it.”

Charles Kupchan, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the former National Security Council director for European affairs in the Obama administration, said he “would not encourage Ukraine to seek to reassert control over Crimea by force, simply because the escalation risks are very high.”

“Crimea is of considerable strategic importance to Russia,” Kupchan told Defense News. “It looms large historically. It’s difficult for me to imagine that the Russians would accept complete defeat and expulsion from Crimea.”

But some on Capitol Hill are more bullish about lining up behind President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s goal of fully restoring Ukraine’s sovereignty over its territory.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., visited Ukraine in January and subsequently told Defense News at a news conference that “the American military has consistently underestimated the Ukrainian fighting ability.”

“Everything I have come to learn about the will and determination of the Ukrainians leads me to conclude retaking Crimea is within reach, and they need the artillery that will enable hitting targets — the sites of missiles destroying infrastructure in Ukraine,” he said.

Blumenthal has joined other lawmakers — particularly pro-Ukraine Republicans — in pushing President Joe Biden to give Zelenskyy most of the weapons he requested, including long-range ATACMS missiles and F-16 fighter aircraft.

Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, also called for sending long-range missiles to Ukraine alongside advanced Gray Eagle and Reaper drones.

“We should deliver these assets quickly to make an immediate difference on the battlefield,” Wicker said on the Senate floor in January. “In concert with our allies, this approach of ‘more, better, faster’ would give the Ukrainians a real shot at victory.”

While the Biden administration has voiced concerns that sending ATACMS to Ukraine could enable strikes into Russia, potentially escalating the war into a broader conflict with NATO, the Ukrainians could use those long-range missiles to strike Russian launch points on their own territory — including in Crimea.

Smith indicated he disagrees with the Biden administration’s decision not to send long-range missiles, noting every Ukrainian official assured him they would not use them to attack Russia.

But Smith also said ATACMS producer Lockheed Martin no longer makes the missiles, and the U.S. military still needs them in its stockpiles.

“We’re looking at a variety of different options there,” he said. “They’re not currently being made, so it is legitimately a question of readiness on our part and whether we’d have enough to spare. There are discussions about other longer-range munitions.”

The Biden administration earlier this month announced it is sending Ukraine the Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb. The GLSDB has a range of up to 93 miles, doubling Ukraine’s strike range. However, that still falls short of the ATACMS, which would allow Ukraine to strike Russian targets about 190 miles away.

The Pentagon declined to say whether the GLSDB will be used to attack Russian targets in Crimea. The Ukrainian Embassy in Washington told Defense News that Ukraine would not strike Russian territory with longer-range weapons pledged by the United States.

Future funding

Depending on how long the war lasts, it remains far from certain whether lawmakers will keep funding Ukraine aid packages. Congress provided more than $100 billion in aid to Kyiv since Russia invaded last year, including $61.4 billion in military aid.

The undersecretary of state for political affairs, Victoria Nuland, told the Senate in January the Biden administration still expects the $45 billion Ukraine aid package Congress passed in December to last through the end of this fiscal year. But the assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, Celeste Wallander, warned at the hearing that the current funding level “does not preclude” the administration from needing to request more assistance before the end of September.

While the bipartisan majority of lawmakers support arming Kyiv, 57 Republicans voted against a $40 billion emergency aid supplemental in May. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., made several concessions to those Ukraine aid skeptics to secure the votes to win his protracted speakership battle.

He agreed to a House rules change that would allow any member to initiate a vote to remove him as speaker, forcing him to tread carefully even on issues that enjoy majority Republican support — such as Ukraine assistance.

It took 15 votes for McCarthy to secure the position, after which he appointed three Republicans who oppose Ukraine aid — Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Ralph Norman of South Carolina and Chip Roy of Texas — to the Rules Committee, which controls legislation and debate on the House floor.

But another McCarthy concession — a procedure allowing 218 members to force a House floor vote on any bill — could present an opportunity for pro-Ukraine Republicans and Democrats to pass additional funding for Kyiv.

Still, the political dynamics may become more complicated in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election, as some prominent Ukraine aid opponents, including former President Donald Trump and Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, have already thrown their hats into the ring or are reportedly considering doing so.

Making weapons

One key question that could determine the war’s end game is how long Ukraine’s backers can keep up their arms donations to Kyiv.

“There’s no such thing as infinite resources,” said Jensen, the CSIS analyst. “Heaven forbid this goes on another year, two years. At some point the fighting will exhaust even the entirety of the Western world’s support for Ukraine.”

While defense spending in the United States and Europe is trending upward, in large part because of Russia’s attack, industrial capacity to crank out weapons and ammunition has emerged as a bottleneck.

In response, companies on both sides of the Atlantic announced plans to restart production lines for artillery shells and other weapons considered somewhat arcane until recently.

Wicker said the fiscal 2023 government funding and defense authorization bills include money to expand munitions manufacturing, “doubling and even tripling production capabilities for weapons like 155mm shells, [anti-tank] Javelins and [the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System].”

Still, it’s an open question whether the U.S. will be able to indefinitely continue its current level of support, said Mark Cancian, a CSIS senior adviser who has studied the volumes of artillery used in the war.

“They’re going through it at phenomenal rates,” he said of the Ukrainian military firing artillery munitions. “The U.S. bins are very low. We’re going to increase production substantially, but it’ll still be way below what the Ukrainians are using.”

Despite pleas from Kyiv, Germany has so far resisted international pressure to provide its Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, or permit other countries with the tanks, like Poland and Finland, to send them. Ukrainian leaders have said they need modern Western tanks to help repel an expected spring offensive from Moscow’s forces in Russian-occupied territories in the east.

After the meeting of representatives from the 50-plus donor nations, new German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius defended his government’s decision to withhold the weapons for now, but said he has ordered a review of the country’s stocks in case of a change of heart.

“We’re not really hesitating, but we are just being very careful in balancing the pros and cons,” he added. “This is a new kind of measure we would choose.”

Pistorius said there was no unity among representatives about sending Leopard tanks, suggesting even their military utility for the conflict is in dispute. “There is no common opinion” on tank deliveries, said Pistorius. “The impression that there is a firm coalition, with Germany standing in the way, is false.”

The struggle over main battle tanks comes as the U.S. and other allies of Ukraine are ramping up support for Ukraine to include armored vehicles, advanced air defenses like Patriot and other weapons they previously denied to Kyiv. The aid reflects a fear the conflict could turn into a grinding war of attrition unless Ukrainian forces have the tools they need to turn the tide.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who had pressed Berlin for a decision, told reporters after Friday’s meeting that Germany is still a leader in the effort and a reliable ally. He pointed to Berlin’s provision of armored vehicles, air defenses and training for Ukrainian forces — and downplayed the tank issue, saying the effort “isn’t really about one single platform.”

“They are a reliable ally, and they’ve been that way for a very, very long time, and I truly believe that they’ll continue to be a reliable ally going forward,” Austin said. “Not to mention Germany is host to 39,000 of my troops and their families, and also 10,000 civilians here.”

America’s latest package of aid totals $2.5 billion and includes Stryker armored vehicles for the first time. The eight-wheeled, 20-ton Stryker has been in U.S. arsenals for more than 20 years and carries nine infantrymen and two crew.

The U.S. package includes 90 Strykers, another 53 Bradley fighting vehicles, 350 Humvees, 53 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles, more than 100,000 rounds of artillery ammunition and rockets, and missiles for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System. It also provides eight Avenger air defense systems and more NASAMS munitions, aimed at countering a range of short- and medium-range threats.

Pistorius said his country’s new aid package would amount to more than €1 billion, or $1.1 billion, bringing Berlin’s Ukraine contributions to a total of €3.3 billion so far. Germany this spring plans to send roughly 40 Marder infantry fighting vehicles, a Patriot air-defense fire unit, additional IRIS-T air-defense units, Gepard air-defense tanks and fresh ammunition for those weapons.

Other pledges announced ahead of the Ramstein meeting included S-60 anti-aircraft guns with 70,000 rounds of ammunition from Poland, additional Stinger air-defense systems and two M-17 helicopters from Latvia, and two Russian-made Mi-8 helicopters and dozens of L-70 anti-aircraft guns with ammunition from Lithuania.

All eyes were on Germany ahead of the meeting, whose Leopards exist in most European countries’ armed forces, with tank-support advocates hoping for an announcement to “#FreeTheLeopards,” as a hashtag created by a raucous military Twitter crowd fueling the debate proposes.

Pistorius said the German defense ministry is evaluating how many Leopards Berlin could deliver, with an eye on different configurations and compatibility with allies in an eventual deployment, Pistorius said.

He left open the question of when officials would make a decision.

Pistorius said countries that had offered to send their own Leopards were free to undertake similar prep work for a potential deployment.

Berlin must approve the export of German-made weapons. The prospect of nations bypassing Germany’s approval, as reports from Poland suggested, did not come up at the meeting, Pistorius added.

The United Kingdom announced last week it would send Challenger 2 tanks, describing it as a natural progression of military aid to Ukraine.

The U.S. has so far declined to provide M1 Abrams tanks. Pentagon officials view the Leopards as the most immediately accessible and usable capability for Ukraine, and the Abrams, which guzzles jet fuel and carries a heavy sustainment burden, as unsuitable.

At a Pentagon briefing Thursday, spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said the Leopard and Challenger aren’t comparable to the Abrams tanks.

The Leopard and Challenger are “a little bit easier to maintain,” Singh said. “They can maneuver across large portions of territory before they need to refuel. The maintenance and the high cost that it would take to maintain an Abrams — it just doesn’t make sense to provide that to the Ukrainians at this moment.”

A Kremlin spokesman said the deployment of Western tanks would trigger “unambiguously negative” consequences.

“All these tanks will require both maintenance and repairs, and so on, so [sending them] will add to Ukraine’s problems, but will not change anything with regard to the Russian side achieving its goals,” Dmitry Peskov said during a media briefing Friday.

As Friday’s meeting in Ramstein opened, Austin set an urgent tone, warning the conflict is at a “crucial moment” and aid to Ukraine should intensify.

“We need to dig even deeper. This is a decisive moment for Ukraine and a decisive decade for the world. Make no mistake, we will support Ukraine’s self-defense for as long as it takes,” he said.

With reporting by the Associated Press

The new U.S. military drawdown — worth about $2.85 billion and featuring 50 M2A2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles armed with anti-tank missiles — is aimed at getting as much to Ukrainian forces as possible during the winter months, before spring sets in and an expected increase in fighting begins.

Pentagon officials say the provision of several hundred armored vehicles, along with plans for U.S. training of Ukrainian troops on combined arms as well as operations and maintenance of the Bradleys, offer Ukraine a chance to retake territory from Russia’s invasion force. The vehicles are expected to help Ukraine’s infantry accompany its fast-moving armored forces.

“These capabilities will complement and work with the expanded U.S.-led training beginning this month that will build Ukraine’s capacity to conduct joint maneuver and combined operations,” Laura Cooper, deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia, told reporters at the Pentagon. “We will ensure Ukraine has both the equipment and the skilled force necessary to sustain its efforts to push back on Russian aggression.”

The new aid, which draws from the Ukraine spending package Congress approved last month, includes $225 million for Ukraine and $682 million for European allies, under the U.S. Foreign Military Financing program, to buy American-made military gear over the long term. Cooper said Ukraine would likely buy air defense weapons, artillery and armored vehicles — its top priorities.

The latest military equipment drawn down from U.S. military stockpiles includes new types of projectiles, such as an undisclosed number of RIM-7 Seasparrow missiles, which Ukraine can integrate into its Soviet-era Buk air defenses, and 4,000 127mm Zuni rockets, which can be mounted on Ukraine’s fixed-wing or rotary-wing aircraft.

With the Bradleys come more M113 armored personnel carriers; mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles; and Humvees. The U.S. is sending 155mm Paladin self-propelled howitzers for the first time, with more 105mm towed howitzers and related ammunition.

The Bradley, a tracked vehicle made by BAE Systems, carries up to 10 troops and is usually armed with two TOW anti-tank missiles, a 25mm Bushmaster chain gun and a 7.62mm coaxial machine gun. With it the U.S. is sending 500 TOW missiles and 250,000 rounds of 25mm ammunition.

Germany and France also pledged to send infantry fighting vehicles from their arsenals, but the allies stopped short of sending Western tanks, which are more complex for Ukraine’s needs and have longer-range guns. The Bradley, used to transport troops to combat, is not a tank but is known as a “tank-killer” because of the anti-tank missile it can fire.

Cooper defended the pace in sending the armored vehicles and the United States’ reluctance to send Abrams tanks. The new package, she said, became appropriate as Ukrainian forces have “demonstrated a lot of growing proficiency in maintenance and sustainment” on American and other systems, partially through using remote “tele-maintenance.”

While the U.S. and the Netherlands are due to jointly send refurbished Czech T-72 tanks, “the Abrams tank in addition to being a gas guzzler is quite challenging to maintain,” she said. “What we are looking at in the Bradley is a capability that we could envision them really using to great effect, along with the training.”

Still, Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Thursday that this year his country will receive weapons from Western allies that it did not in 2022, and that “the time of the weapons taboo has passed,” thanks to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksyy’s “marathon” talks with foreign leaders this week.

U.S. President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz confirmed in a joint statement Thursday that the U.S. would provide Bradleys to Ukraine while Germany would provide Marder infantry fighting vehicles. France earlier this week pledged to send AMX-10 RC vehicles, billed as “light tanks” on wheels boasting armor-breaking 105mm guns.

The Marder contingent entails “up to 40 vehicles,” or a battalion’s worth, according to officials in Berlin. Deliveries of the vehicles to Ukraine, plus an eight-week training for Ukrainian troops in Germany, are to conclude by the end of March.

German Defence Minister Christine Lambrecht and her U.S. counterpart, Lloyd Austin, spoke by phone Friday about details of their new contributions and to prepare the Jan. 20 meeting of international donor countries known as the Ramstein format.

Lambrecht described the Marder and Bradley pledges as a “joint German-American initiative” to ship Western-made combat vehicles to war-torn Ukraine, supporting France’s contribution of what she described as wheeled reconnaissance tanks.

The Marders could be sourced both from the armed forces’ inventory and a pool of vehicles held in storage by manufacturer Rheinmetall, according to a statement by the German Defence Ministry.

The latest German military contribution also includes a Patriot air defense system, following the Americans’ lead from December. Previous notable military contributions by Berlin include rocket launchers, howitzers, the IRIS-T anti-missile weapon and the Gepard air defense tank, which is credited with shooting down Russian drones and missiles despite being deemed too old for service in the Bundeswehr.

Government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said the planned combat vehicle deliveries had been closely coordinated ahead of the announcement this week, suggesting other international partners could follow suit in the coming weeks.

The joint announcement by Berlin and Washington follows a similar move by France earlier this week. Paris pledged to send an unspecified number of AMX-10 RC vehicles, billed as light tanks on wheels boasting armor-breaking 105 mm guns.

Ukraine has been pressing Western powers to donate armored vehicles, tanks and air defense systems and longer-range missiles amid the intense winter fighting. However, U.S. and German officials held back granting Western-made combat vehicles and tanks for Ukraine because they would require significant training and logistics expertise and could escalate the conflict with Russia beyond Ukraine’s borders.

Ukrainian forces have made gains beating back Russian invaders in recent months, and leaders in Kyiv have argued the battlefield success creates an opportunity to throw out Moscow’s forces altogether with more Western help.

The Bradley, a tracked armored vehicle made by BAE Systems, carries up to 10 troops and is usually armed with a 25mm chain gun and anti-tank guided missiles. The U.S. Army has about 2,400 Bradleys in its formations, but the service is moving to replace the 40-year-old vehicle.

According to a report by Reuters on Thursday, the number of Bradleys in line for Ukraine is 50.

Newer versions of the Rheinmetall-made Marder feature a 20mm cannon and anti-tank missiles. The Marder has been in service for more than 50 years with Germany’s armed forces, which started a life-extension for the program some years after the designated successor vehicle, the Puma, was showing growing pains.

According to a White House readout of a call today between President Joe Biden and Chancellor Olaf Scholz, both the U.S. and Germany plan to train Ukrainian forces on the respective armored vehicles.

Pentagon Spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder told reporters Thursday that the U.S. training would focus on both operating the Bradleys and maintaining them. The Bradleys will provide offensive and defensive capabilities as the fighting has grown static along the front line, he said.

In light of Russia’s ongoing missile and drone attacks against Ukraine’s critical infrastructure, Germany also pledged to follow the U.S. in sending a Patriot air defense battery to Ukraine.

Alongside a $675 million package of heavy weaponry, ammunition and armored vehicles for Ukraine, the administration notified Congress of its intent to make $2.2 billion in new Foreign Military Financing available. The recipients include NATO members and Eastern European security partners the State Department called “most potentially at risk for future Russian aggression.”

The prospect of financing options for U.S. weaponry ups the ante in a long-standing sales push by Washington to be first in line when former Warsaw Pact countries flush the last stockpiles of Soviet gear out of their arsenals. Recent donations by those countries to Ukraine have made the need to backfill their inventories all the more urgent.

It also sets up a competition, at least implicitly, with arms makers in Europe, who are vying for the business, as well as with the European Union as a bloc, where officials are scrambling to accelerate joint procurement of weapons and ammunition.

At the start of a Thursday meeting with senior officials from allied countries at the United States’ Ramstein Air Base in Germany, Austin announced that in the coming weeks, the U.S. will host “senior armaments directors” from the member nations of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group. “They will discuss how our defense industrial bases can best equip Ukraine’s future forces with the capabilities that they need.”

“Many countries continue to dig deep and provide equipment out of their own military stocks. That can mean purchasing new equipment from their own defense industries, or even purchasing new equipment from other countries that they can send to Ukraine,” Austin told the meeting, which was attended by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and Ukraine’s defense minister as well as officials from allied countries.

Austin said the countries working together should be able to “streamline processes,” shorten acquisition timelines and share best practices. The remarks come as Austin has launched an effort within the Pentagon to fast-track the foreign military sales process.

Foreign Military Financing generally allows recipients to purchase U.S.-made defense equipment, and the State Department, which administers FMF, said Thursday the aid it is meant to help countries backfill weapons and equipment they have sent to Ukraine.

Given the urgency of Ukraine’s fight to repel Russia’s invasion, the loans can also be used in the short term to fund the kinds of Soviet-era weapons, parts and ammunition common to Eastern Europe. The State Department envisions Ukraine using the money after the war to rebuild its military training ability.

“In the immediate term, FMF will be used to cover wartime requirements of the AFU to provide them with means necessary to win the war against the Russian Federation,” a State Department spokesman said, using an acronym for Ukraine’s armed forces.

Of the loans, $1 billion will be made available for Ukraine. The rest will be divided among 18 other countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia.

The loans “may support” purchases of a broad range of materiel, from high-end integrated air and missile defense systems and fixed-wing aircraft like the F-16 to small arms and ammunition, the State Department said.

And recipients may use the loans for a broad range of reasons: to “deter and defend against emergent threats to their sovereignty and territorial integrity, increase professionalization and modernization of their security forces, enhance partner military integration with NATO, and strengthen defensive cyber, hybrid warfare, and conventional capabilities to counter Russian influence and aggression,” the State Department said.

Though Congress must approve the proposal, it has already appropriated the money through the $40 billion Ukraine aid package from May and the State Department’s standing fund for countering Russian influence.

The $675 million package of U.S. military equipment set to be drawn from U.S. military stockpiles includes more High-speed Anti-radiation missiles, meant to hone in on Russian artillery, as well ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, sent to Ukraine.

That package also includes 105mm howitzers, 36,000 artillery rounds, 100 Humvees, armored ambulances, anti-tank systems and more.

Austin said the group gathered to renew its long-term commitment to military support.

“We will work together to help integrate Ukraine’s capabilities and bolster its joint operations for the long haul,” Austin told the meeting. “We’ll work together to upgrade our defense industrial bases to meet Ukraine’s requirements for the long haul. And we’ll work together for production and innovation to meet Ukraine’s self-defense needs for the long haul.”

Austin said “the war is at another key moment,” with Ukrainian forces beginning their counteroffensive in the south of the country.

“Now we’re seeing the demonstrable success of our common efforts on the battlefield,” he added. “The face of the war is changing and so is the mission of this contact group,”

The U.S. has committed $14.5 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of Russia’s invasion on February 24.

The Ukraine Contact Group, which included 40 member countries at the inaugural gathering at Ramstein Air Base in Germany on April 26, has since attracted more interest. U.S. defense officials declined to give a tally as the responses were still rolling in. The meeting will be held by video teleconference.

“There are some countries that have shown an interest in participating that weren’t in the first meeting,” Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said Friday. “There’s not a cap on it, and we would love to have as many countries as possible.

“In its first iteration, you had countries from the Middle East, you had countries from the Indo-Pacific,” he said. “It wasn’t just Europe, and it certainly wasn’t just NATO. There was a true global community there of countries that were interested in what’s going on in Ukraine.”

British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace, co-organizer of the push, is expected to make an opening statement along with Austin and a Ukrainian delegate, according to a British official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. As of Friday, 18 countries were preparing announcements on providing new kit, the official said.

The group’s purpose is to address Ukraine’s near- and long-term needs, Austin has said. High on the agenda Monday will be Kyiv’s immediate requirements, as Ukrainian forces prepare for grinding combat in the country’s east.

“It’s an important new way for nations of goodwill to intensify their efforts to help Ukraine better defend itself, both for today’s urgent needs and for the long haul,” Austin said in May 11 congressional testimony. “Our most urgent goal continues to be sending the Ukrainians the capabilities they need most right now, as the war has shifted to the Donbass and to the south. The coming weeks will be critical.”

At the last meeting, Germany agreed to provide 50 Cheetah air-defense vehicles to Ukraine. The vehicles are slated to be delivered in July, German broadcaster ZDF reported. The British government also agreed to provide Ukraine with anti-aircraft capabilities, along with Canada’s offer of eight armored vehicles.

Austin will hold a call with Ukraine’s defense minister, Oleksii Reznikov, to discuss its military requirements in advance of the contact group meeting, Kirby said. As with the first meeting, Reznikov will offer an update on the fighting and relay Ukraine’s needs, after which the member countries will discuss how they can meet them.

Speaking at the EU Foreign Affairs Council on Wednesday, Reznikov warned that Russia is preparing for a long war against his country.

“There are many indications of Russia preparing for a long-term military operation. The war is entering a protracted phase,” he said. “We can already see how the Russian occupiers are beginning engineering and fortification works in the Kherson [and] Zaporizhya [regions].”

With Ukraine’s civilian population under attack, Reznikov said Ukraine wants to acquire the weapons it needs to end the conflict as soon as possible — “and in the right quantities.”

“We need tanks, armored vehicles, long-range fire weapons systems” as well as multiple launch rocket systems, heavy artillery, aircraft, missiles, he said. “We strive to save the lives of our people.”

Western defense officials have previously denied the supply of weapon types that could expand the war beyond Ukraine’s borders. On Friday, Kirby said the Pentagon can meet Ukraine’s needs and avoid escalating the war.

“Nobody wants to see it escalate beyond the incredibly brutal violence that is already visited upon the Ukrainian people,” Kirby said.