The US State Department and the Pentagon have different views on the transfer of certain weapons to Ukraine.
A high-ranking official from the Administration of President Biden told "Politico" about this.
"The state is looking for opportunities, the Ministry of Defense is looking for threats. People from the Ministry of Defense would say that they need to think about the pros and cons of every decision on weapons, and that responsibility falls on them," the source stated.
Politico notes that the latest example of such delays is the situation with the long-range ATACMS missiles, which President Joe Biden agreed to send to Ukraine last week after more than a year of discussions. The Pentagon initially resisted this, citing that the US does not have "extra" missiles in stock.
The unnamed US officials acknowledged that Pentagon leaders are taking a deliberate approach to assessing Ukraineʼs needs on the battlefield before the threat of a wider conflict. But US Commander-in-Chief Mark Milley and other Pentagon chiefs often say their first priority has always been to give Kiev what it needs to continue fighting Russiaʼs military.
- NBC News, with reference to three US officials and an official representative of Congress, wrote that the United States will still transfer a small number of long-range ATACMS missiles to Ukraine.
- And the Financial Times newspaper reported that Joe Bidenʼs Administration decided not to publicly announce the delivery of ATACMS missiles to Ukraine. According to the publicationʼs sources, this was done in order not to help the Russians with tips and not to encourage them to move their supply lines further from the front line.