The Pentagon notified Congress on 26 March of its intent to divert $750 million from the PURL programme (Partnership for Ukraine Resilient Logistics), a NATO fund earmarked for Ukrainian arms procurement, to restock American inventories depleted by the Iran war1. Officials are also considering redirecting actual weapons, including air defence interceptors, from Ukraine to the Middle East.
The notification follows a pattern of resource erosion. An estimated 100 to 150 THAAD interceptors, roughly a quarter of global inventory, disappeared in the Iran war's first week. US Treasury then issued waivers on 124 million barrels of Russian oil at sea, giving Moscow a revenue windfall. Now Washington proposes to strip Ukraine's defence budget to fund the war that created that windfall.
The diversion remains a congressional notification, not a signed order. Zelenskyy confirmed deliveries have not stopped yet2. But European PURL contributors may not have understood their funds would restock US, not Ukrainian, inventories3. The programme was structured as a multilateral NATO contribution specifically for Ukraine; diverting it exploits a legal ambiguity in its terms.
Macron responded the same day: the Iran war "must not divert our attention from support we give Ukraine"4. If Congress does not block the transfer, European governments face a choice between accepting the redirection or demanding restitution, a debate that will shape NATO cohesion through the June summit.
