With only two months left, what are Biden’s options for Ukraine?

With little more than two months left in the White House, Joe Biden is running out of time to expedite the delivery of funds and weaponry needed to ensure Ukraine can stay in the fight against the Russian invasion.

The White House is transferring weapons and up to $6bn (£4.6bn) in remaining aid as quickly as possible to Ukraine while advocates for Kyiv are calling on the White House to repeal restrictions on long-range weaponry and find other sources of funding the war before Donald Trump enters office in January.

Ahead of each presidential transition, administration officials repeat the mantra that they serve “one president at a time” and Biden remains in full control of US foreign policy until Trump’s inauguration on 20 January. But the prospect of a sea change in Ukraine policy under Trump makes it unlikely that any serious changes by Biden will remain in place under the next administration.

Biden is expected to host Trump this week at the White House for a high-stakes meeting where the sitting president is expected to urge Trump to continue providing funding to Ukraine, as well as discuss a broad foreign policy agenda on which the two rarely see eye-to-eye.

The national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said in a television interview this week that Biden would use his final 70 days to tell Trump and Congress, which may see Republican control in both houses, that the “United States should not walk away from Ukraine, that walking away from Ukraine means more instability in Europe”.

Sullivan declined to answer a question about say whether Biden would propose an additional funding bill for Ukraine.

Meanwhile a frontrunner for a position in the Trump administration has added doubts that the Trump administration will continue funding for Ukraine. “The American people want sovereignty protected here in America before we spend our funds and resources protecting the sovereignty of another nation,” said Senator Bill Hagerty, a Trump ally who is considered a top contender for secretary of state.

It is unlikely the administration can push another aid supplemental promising more money through Congress, but there is still $6bn in outstanding aid that can be dispersed before Biden leaves office. After that, US officials have admitted that Ukraine will mainly have to focus on Europe for its support.

The Pentagon has allowed a small number of US defence contractors to work inside Ukraine to maintain and repair F-16s and Patriot missile defence systems. And a new report by the Wall Street Journal says the Pentagon is speeding up delivery of more than 500 missile interceptors to Ukraine before the end of Biden’s term amid concerns that Russia is saving up its own missiles for a massive barrage against Ukrainian cities or energy infrastructure during the winter.

Senior US and European officials had made efforts to “Trump-proof” much of the support for Ukraine, moving the authority for deliveries of weapons to Kyiv to Nato in advance of a potential Trump presidency.

“If Trump, in fact, cuts off military aid to Ukraine, the current assistance package only runs to the end of this calendar year exactly, and the Ukrainians can’t fight adequately absent US military support,” said Richard Fontaine, the chief executive of the Centre for a New American Security, a thinktank. “And we saw this at the beginning of this year, during that interregnum between packages, the Europeans can’t fill the gaps. The Ukrainians can’t fill all the gaps.

“So if he does do that, then that completely changes the dynamic on the ground, and therefore what the outcome might be,” he said.

On a host of questions, from the potential for further aid supplementals, to providing further arms, to presenting an invitation to Nato, to lifting restrictions on long-range strikes into Russia, there appears to be little the administration can do that will have staying power.

Ivo Daalder, a former US permanent representative on the Nato council, said: “You know, whatever, whatever you do in terms of executive orders can be changed the next day.” Pointing to the Biden administration’s limited options on Ukraine, Israel’s conflict in Gaza, and other options during the lame duck period, he added: “So they’re basically going to tread water. I just really don’t see what, you know, what last, lasting action they can take that Trump cannot reverse.”

A Biden administration that prided itself on its foreign policy bona fides now has few successes to point to as it enters its twilight. One senior congressional Democrat said the “universe” of the Biden administration’s foreign policy achievements had “gotten smaller” in the last eight to nine months as US influence has waned in Ukraine and in the Middle East.

Before the elections, some foreign diplomats stationed in Washington said they were frustrated with the Biden administration’s hesitancy on Ukraine and its slow disbursement of support and lack of willingness to take risks under national security adviser Sullivan.

David Kramer, the executive director of the George W Bush Institute and a former state department official who worked on Russia and Ukraine, said: “The Biden administration deserves credit for the sanctions regime and keeping allies united, providing assistance to Ukraine, but Ukrainians have been incredibly frustrated with the decision-making process and then the provision of assistance, the restrictions that have been imposed, particularly on these long-range weapon systems, and the failure to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join Nato.”

As Trump’s uncertain policy on Ukraine comes into greater focus, it appears he is preparing to cut or severely limit aid to Ukraine. He has announced that neither the former UN ambassador Nikki Haley nor the former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, both former administration officials who had been strong advocates for Kyiv, would be part of his administration. And Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr tweeted a video of Volodymyr Zelenskyy with the caption: “POV: You’re 38 Days from losing your allowance.”

With time running out, some advocates for Ukraine have urged more ambitious steps – in particular lifting the limits on long-range missiles that have prevented Ukraine from using guided missiles to strike targets in the Russian rear.

Melinda Haring, a senior advisor at Razom, a nonprofit that sends aid to Ukraine and nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said: “I think there’s a pretty strong consensus that President Biden can ignore his fears of escalation, and that President Putin isn’t going to start a nuclear war as the administrations change. So now is the opportunity to do it.

“The other big opportunity for the Biden administration is to seize and transfer … $5bn in Russian central bank reserves, and it needs to be done now, in order to make sure that it’s done correctly, and all eyes are on the Biden administration.”

As to any movement on a negotiated settlement, analysts and officials have said that any serious negotiations will have to take place under the next president – with Ukraine likely in a significantly weaker negotiating position.

“The reality is, both Putin and Zelenskyy can no longer worry about what Biden might or might not like, or frankly, the entire administration, because they’re going to be gone in two and a half months,” said Daalder.