The Lend-Lease Act for Ukraine has expired, yet it was never used since its inception.

BBC reported on this.

As previously reported, the Lend-Lease Act was finally approved on May 29, 2022.

This decision should have allowed a more efficient supply of weapons, ammunition, military equipment, and other critical supplies to Ukraine.

However, this act did not work, as the United States has been providing military assistance through three existing programs.

These programs include the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), Foreign Military Financing (FMF), and the Replenishment of U.S. weapons stocks (PDA).

These three programs allow to either withdraw weapons from the US Army’s stocks or buy new ones from the national defense industry.

U.S. politicians say that the U.S. government is focused on providing free aid rather than leasing weapons.

Lend-Lease Act as a backup tool

Lend-Lease provided another tool that could have been used when funds for assistance initiatives would be scarce or when there would be many more weapons that could be allocated.

Representatives of the Ukrainian and American authorities stated that the Lend-Lease was a “backup tool.”

That is, if the Congress, where the US Democratic Party lost its majority in the House of Representatives last November, refused to allocate funds from the budget for the first three programs, then President Biden could have used the Lend-Lease Act.

The text of the act states that the President of the United States was “granted expanded authority to enter into agreements with the Government of Ukraine to lease or rent defense assets to protect civilians in Ukraine from Russian military invasion and for other purposes.”

However, Kyiv and Washington have not signed the relevant agreements, which would spell out all the necessary conditions and volumes of military assistance.

Besides, this act was only effective for the 2022 and 2023 fiscal years in the United States. The new fiscal year in the US started in October.

Valerii Chaly, former Ukrainian Ambassador to the United States, points out that the amendment to extend the lend-lease is in the draft US defense budget for 2024.

Therefore, it is quite possible that the mechanism of the lend-lease for Ukraine will be extended.

In July of this year, Chaly’s successor, Oksana Markarova, shared that she was “actively working” to convince Congress to extend the Lend-Lease Act.

To be or not to be?

Experts believe that the issue of a Lend-Lease Act for Ukraine is not being raised not to provoke Democrats and Republicans into disputes.

On the last possible day, September 30, the US House of Representatives and the Senate approved a bill to temporarily fund the government to prevent a shutdown.

However, there is still a possibility that the Lend-Lease Act will be renewed to provide the U.S. President with a tool to supply military assistance to Ukraine bypassing Congress.