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The White House announced that the United States would send $300 million (£234 million) in military weapons, including ammunition, rockets and anti-aircraft missiles, to Ukraine.
The surprise announcement came amid partisan debate as a parliamentary bill was introduced to send more aid to Ukrainian vendors.
The purpose of the shipment, the first from the United States in about three months, is to prevent Ukraine from losing to Russia.
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said the aid “falls far short of meeting Ukraine’s battlefield needs.”
“This ammunition will keep Ukrainian guns firing for a period of time, but only for a short period of time,” Sullivan told reporters Tuesday. “It will not prevent Ukraine from running out of ammunition.” he added.
The White House has been pushing Congress for months to pass a budget that would send aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.
The $60 billion aid bill has already passed the Senate, but has not yet been voted on in the House.
House Speaker Mike Johnson has so far declined to consider the Senate bill. Johnson, an ally of Donald Trump, said the House will vote on its own aid bill, but only after Congress passes a budget overhauling the U.S. immigration system.
On Tuesday, a bipartisan group of House members launched a longshot petition, an attempt to force the House to vote on the Senate bill, using an unusual procedural tactic that hasn’t been successful since 2015.
The latest aid announcement came as President Joe Biden hosted Poland’s president and prime minister at the White House to show support for Ukraine.
Also on Tuesday, Denmark announced it would ship about $336 million in ammunition and artillery to Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said last month that the country had stalled in recent months due to an “artificial shortage” of weapons.
