Congressional leaders received a letter of concern on Friday from Pentagon officials who warned that funding to support Ukraine in its ongoing war with Russia is running low.

Pentagon Comptroller Michael McCord told House and Senate leaders in the letter that approximately $1.6 billion remains left out of the $25.9 billion in weapons funding for Ukrainian forces. Additionally, McCord said the U.S. has about $5.4 billion left to supply weapons and equipment from its stockpiles.

“We have already been forced to slow down the replenishment of our own forces to hedge against an uncertain funding future,” McCord said in the letter. “Failure to replenish our military services on a timely basis could harm our military’s readiness.”

Without additional funding, the U.S. would have to halt sending equipment that is “critical and urgent now as Russia prepares to conduct a winter offensive.”

The letter comes amid Congress passing a stopgap spending measure over the weekend to prevent a government shutdown for 45 days that avoids sending additional aid to Ukraine, which a chorus of Republicans in the House and Senate strongly oppose including in any spending packages.

A group of other Republicans, led by Sen. JD Vance and Texas Rep. Chip Roy, sent a letter to Shalanda Young, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, arguing that the American people “deserve to know” how further aid to Ukraine is spent.

“The American people deserve to know what their money has gone to. How is the counteroffensive going? Are the Ukrainians any closer to victory than they were 6 months ago? What is our strategy, and what is the president’s exit plan? What does the administration define as victory in Ukraine?” the letter asked. “It would be an absurd abdication of congressional responsibility to grant this request without knowing the answers to these questions.”

Since the full-scale war erupted in February 2022, the U.S. has sent Ukraine more than $44 billion on security assistance to meet Ukraine’s critical security and defense needs.

President Joe Biden asked Congress last month to approve an additional $24 billion package to Ukraine for military aid and economic, humanitarian, and security assistance for other countries impacted by the war.

Biden reportedly said on Sunday that the aid would continue flowing to Ukraine while acknowledging time is of the essence.

“We cannot under any circumstances allow America’s support for Ukraine to be interrupted,” Biden said. “We have time, not much time, and there’s an overwhelming sense of urgency.”

Sources for Bloomberg reportedly told the outlet that Biden plans on contacting allies to reassure them that Ukrainian support would continue as he publicly announced he expects House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to “keep his word” about securing passage of support for the Eastern European nation, despite many American citizens battling high prices in the homeland while the U.S.-Mexico border experiences record high illegal crossings.

While the majority of Congress has been steadfast in their support for Ukraine, the bipartisan bill has no funding to continue it.

We can't allow this to be interrupted.

I expect the Speaker to keep his word and secure the passage of support for Ukraine at this critical moment.

— President Biden (@POTUS) October 1, 2023

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday that another support package for Ukraine would be announced “soon” that is enough to meet Ukraine’s “urgent battlefield needs for a bit longer.”

Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told The Associated Press that Ukrainian resistance against Russian forces could begin to weaken if the support from the U.S. stops.

“If there’s no new money, they’re going to start feeling it by Thanksgiving,” he said.

Sweden is turning to its military to curb violent crime that has soared alongside immigrant gang activity across the country.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson announced on Friday that he planned to ask the country’s military to step in and aid police in combatting surging shootings and bomb attacks. The prime minister also said he would look into legislation that would give the military greater authority to engage in police activities, according to the Financial Times.

The prime minister’s announcement followed remarks he made the day before condemning the surge in violence and saying that Sweden’s immigration policies are largely to blame. Police officials in the Scandinavian country have said the security situation in Sweden is the worst it has been since World War II.

“I cannot emphasize enough how serious the situation is. Sweden has never seen anything like it before. No other country in Europe sees anything like it currently,” Kristersson said Thursday night, according to FT.

“It is political naivete and cluelessness that has brought us here,” he continued. “It is an irresponsible immigration policy and failed integration effort that has brought us here.”

Criminal gangs in Sweden have preyed upon children and teens, enticing or forcing them to commit crimes because the penalties against underage criminals are less severe than against adults.

“Social exclusion and parallel societies feed the criminal gangs. There they can ruthlessly recruit children and train them as future killers,” Kristersson said.

The effort to involve the military in curbing gang violence appears to have drawn support across the political spectrum in Sweden. Before Kristersson, a center-right politician, Sweden’s former Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson, who is center-left and in the opposition, said Thursday that the military should be leveraged against the gangs.

“Surveillance performed by police officers could be carried out by the military. In addition, there is technical know-how with the military that they could assist with,” the former prime minister said. Her comments came after a violent 24 hours in which three people were killed in shootings and bombings.

Earlier in the week, two explosions ripped through buildings in a suburb of Sweden’s capital and Linkoping, 110 miles southwest. The bombs injured at least three people. A Swedish newspaper reported that both explosions are suspected of being connected to gang activity.

National Police Commissioner Anders Thornberg said last month that violence across Sweden has reached an “unprecedented scale.”

“Several boys aged between 13 and 15 have been killed, the mother of a criminal was executed at home, and a young man in Uppsala was shot dead on his way to work,” Thornberg said. “Citizens are afraid, insecurity is increasing. And this at a time when we have raised our terrorist alert level in the country.”