The Pentagon is making ready to announce a batch of weapons and ammunition for Kiev value as much as $6 billion as early as Friday, nameless officers have informed Politico.
Among the many gadgets featured within the bundle is ammunition for Patriot and NASAMS air protection programs, artillery shells and HIMARS rockets, air-to-air missiles, drones and counter-drone weapons, the sources mentioned.
Washington has already rushed $1 billion value of ammunition drawn down from US navy shares, as quickly as President Joe Biden signed the invoice offering for $61 billion in help to the Ukrainian authorities.
The pending $6 billion batch gained’t come out of the Pentagon’s stockpile, nonetheless, as it’s funded via the Ukraine Safety Help Initiative (USAI). This system has the Pentagon challenge contracts to US navy trade to construct new gear for Kiev. This implies the products “doubtless gained’t arrive in Ukraine for a number of years,” Politico famous.
The $61 billion help bundle was permitted earlier this week after months of languishing in Congress. The Republicans, who held it up within the Home of Representatives, signed off on it with out getting something in return from the ruling Democrats.
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has blamed the suspension of American help for the collection of battlefield setbacks that his military has skilled since final yr. Most Western media shops have predicted a turnaround in Ukrainian fortunes now that the brand new US funding has been permitted.
An evaluation printed by the Economist on Thursday went as far as to recommend that the invoice could have prevented a Russian offensive this summer time, which Moscow “may need hoped” to make use of to “drive a Ukrainian give up on humiliating phrases.”
In the meantime, the Kremlin has shrugged off the brand new US help invoice as unable to vary the battlefield dynamics, that are firmly in Russia’s favor. In accordance with President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov, the one factor the brand new US funding will do is get extra Ukrainians killed.
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