The United States will announce, perhaps as early as Wednesday, a new package of security assistance to Ukraine worth about three billion dollars, an American official quoted by Reuters said on Tuesday.
The package will be the largest from Washington in the six months since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the announced date will coincide with Ukraine’s Independence Day, the agency notes.
The funds will come from the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), approved by the US Congress to allow the administration led by President Joe Biden to purchase weapons from manufacturers instead of sending weapons to Ukrainians from existing US stockpiles.
The official said on condition of anonymity that the new military package does not appear to include types of weapons not previously supplied to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, but will contain ammunition and systems necessary for Ukraine’s medium-term defense.
New American weapons may be in the hands of Ukrainians literally in a few months
If weapons are purchased directly from American manufacturers under the USAI program, they can reach Europe only after a few months.
The American official also stated that it is not excluded that before the official registration of the announcement, the structure of the package will be changed in terms of the included weapons.
The United States has so far provided Ukraine with $10.6 billion in military aid since the Russian invasion began on February 24.
The latest package of military aid to Kyiv, announced by the Pentagon earlier in August, mainly included missiles for HIMARS systems obtained by the Ukrainians, as well as new missiles for the National Advanced Anti-Aircraft Missile System (NASAMS), thousands of Javelin anti-tank missiles and hundreds of Swedish AT4 anti-tank systems production
Mykhailo Podolyak, one of President Volodymyr Zelenskyi’s top advisers, said early Tuesday that 50 HIMARS systems worth about $200 million could completely change the course of the war.
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Source: Hot News RU
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