US announces $820 M in Ukraine aid
WASHINGTON (AP) – The US announced on Friday that it will provide Ukraine with $820 million in new military aid, including new surface-to-air missile systems and counter-artillery radars to respond to Russia’s heavy reliance on longrange strikes in the war.
Russia in recent days has launched dozens of missiles across Ukraine and pinned down Ukrainian forces with continuous fire for sometimes hours at a time. Ukraine’s leaders have publicly called on Western allies to quickly send more ammunition and advanced systems that will help them narrow the gap in equipment and manpower.
All told, the US has committed more than $8.8 billion in weapons and military training to Ukraine, whose leaders have sought more help from Western allies to repel larger and heavily equipped Russian forces. About $7 billion of that aid has been announced since Russia’s February invasion.
“We are going to support Ukraine as long as it takes,” US President Joe Biden said this week during the NATO summit in Madrid. He argued that Russia had already suffered a blow to its international standing and major damage to its economy from Western sanctions imposed over the invasion.
The US is giving Ukrainians “the capacity” so that “they can continue to resist the Russian aggression,” Biden said. “And so I don’t know how it’s going to end, but it will not end with a Russian defeat of Ukraine in Ukraine.”
This is the 14th package of military weapons and equipment transferred to Ukraine from Defense Department stocks since August 2021.
Much of the aid formally announced Friday would take weeks or months to reach Ukraine.
As part of the new package, the US will purchase two systems known as NASAMS, a Norwegian-developed antiaircraft system that is used to protect the airspace around the White House and Capitol in Washington.
A senior defense official said the NASAMS are intended to help Ukraine transition away from using Soviet-era air defense systems that besides being well known to the Russians, have to be repaired with spare parts that are hard to procure. The official briefed reporters on condition of anonymity to discuss military assessments.