Ukraine has received only 10% of latest approved aid from US, Zelensky says

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky looks on as he meets with democratic presidential nominee and US Vice President Kamala Harris (not pictured), in the Vice President's Ceremonial Office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House campus in Washington, US, September 26, 2024. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Ukraine has received only 10% of US military aid approved by Congress earlier this year, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video released on Wednesday.

Russia, which sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022, has accelerated its advances in the east and Kyiv's military is outgunned and outmanned by its more powerful foe.

Ukraine is also bracing for what could be the toughest winter of the war after long-range Russian airstrikes destroyed what officials say is about half of its power generating capacity.

"You do your job. You count on reserves, you count on special brigades, you count on such equipment. And if you get 10% of all the package (that) has already been voted on... it's not funny," Zelenskiy said in remarks in English to Nordic journalists on Tuesday that were published in full on his Telegram page on Wednesday.

A $61 billion aid package from the United States, stalled by Republicans in Congress from December last year, was approved in April.

Zelensky added that the slow pace of weapons supplies was not a question of funding.

"Its always the question of bureaucracy or logistics, ideas or scepticism... This we will give you, this - will not," he said.

He also said that NATO countries had pledged to supply Ukraine with six or seven air defence systems, which Ukraine increasingly relies on to repel long-range Russian strikes, by the beginning of September but that Kyiv had not yet received all of them.