File photo of US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan
Washington: The White House will spend its remaining $6 billion of Ukraine funding before Donald Trump's presidential inauguration in January, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said on Sunday, warning of the global risks of ending US support for Kyiv.
Sullivan said President Joe Biden is expected to go over top foreign policy issues when he meets with President-elect Trump Wednesday in the Oval Office.
"The president will have the chance to explain to President Trump how he sees things, where they stand, and talk to President Trump about how President Trump is thinking about taking on these issues when he takes office," Sullivan said on CBS's "Face the Nation."
Biden has led an international coalition in support of Ukraine as it fights off invasion by Moscow, an effort at a crucial point following Russian military gains and an increasingly dire shortage of Ukrainian manpower.
Trump meantime has insisted that he could end the war in "a day," possibly even before taking office, presumably as part of a deal that would require Kyiv to cede some of its lost territory to Moscow.
The Ukrainians and European NATO members have been scrambling to reach out to Trump while making their own plans for a world in which the US president appears far less supportive of Kyiv and of NATO, and more friendly to Russia.
Sullivan said a prime goal of the Biden administration in its remaining months, will be "to put Ukraine in the strongest possible position on the battlefield so that it is ultimately in the strongest possible position at the negotiating table."
Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded that Ukraine cede large swaths of territory as a precondition to peace talks, while Kyiv has adamantly refused to do so.
