The US on Friday announced that it would provide Ukraine with US$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 long-range strikes in the war.
Russia has in the past few days 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 would help them narrow the gap in equipment and personnel.
Photo: AFP
All told, the US has committed more than US$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 US$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 told a news conference this week during the NATO summit in Madrid.
He said 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.”
Much of the aid formally announced on Friday would take weeks or months to reach Ukraine.
As part of the new package, the US would purchase two systems known as NASAMS, a Norwegian-developed anti-aircraft system that is used to protect the airspace around the White House and the US Capitol in Washington.
A senior defense official told reporters that 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.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy expressed his gratitude.
“I am especially grateful today to the United States and to Biden personally for the package of support for Ukraine announced today, which includes very powerful NASAMS — an anti-aircraft missile system that will significantly strengthen our air defense. We have worked hard for these supplies,” Zelenskiy said late on Friday in his nightly video address.
The Pentagon would also provide Ukraine with up to 150,000 rounds of 155mm artillery ammunition. Given the high usage of artillery on both sides, it is unclear how long those new rounds would last.
The official declined to say how many estimated rounds Ukraine and Russia are firing daily.
The Pentagon is also to buy four counter-artillery radars for Ukraine.
Those new purchases, funded by the Pentagon’s Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, require weeks at a minimum for defense companies to build. Ukrainians are also being trained to use the newly provided systems.
The Pentagon is also to provide additional ammunition for medium-range rocket systems known as the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, which it provided Ukraine last month. The ammunition would come from the US Department of Defense’s own inventory under what is known as drawdown authority and would be made available to Ukraine more quickly.
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