Ukraine's Ambassador to United States highlights critical shortage of missiles
Ambassador of Ukraine to the United States Oksana Markarova (Getty Images)
Ukraine is facing a critical shortage of military equipment - missiles and interceptors, according to Ukraine's Ambassador to the United States Oksana Markarova.
"We still have enough people who want to fight — there is no choice, actually for us, we are defending our homes — but we’re running out of equipment, especially missiles and interceptors. We need this support yesterday," she says.
At the same time, she expressed optimism that U.S. lawmakers would break the deadlock and deliver aid to Ukraine, because "there is no alternative to continuing this support."
"I was so happy to hear that it was a very strong bipartisan support, not yet final of course, just the first step in the right direction," Markarova adds, commenting on the U.S. Senate's statement of support for military aid to Ukraine on February 8.
U.S. aid to Ukraine
The U.S. Senate voted on February 8 to block a bill to allocate funding to support Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan and to secure the U.S. border. According to the results of the vote in the Senate on the night of February 8, 49 lawmakers were in favor of the initiative, and 50 were against it. In total, 60 votes were needed to start work on the legislative initiative.
Earlier, Markarova said that the issue of the United States' assistance to Ukraine was moving in the right direction.
In 2023, the United States provided Ukraine with 34 military aid packages. Their total value was over $24 billion. In particular, at the end of December, the United States allocated a new military aid package to Ukraine of $250 million.
