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The Biden administration said on Monday it was sending its largest but direct weapons to Ukraine as the country prepares for a potentially decisive counteroffensive against Russia in the south, sending Ukraine $1 billion worth of rockets, ammunition and weapons from Defense Department stocks. other materials.
The new U.S. arms shipment will further strengthen Ukraine as it mounts a counteroffensive, which analysts have said for the first time could allow Kyiv to decide the rest of the war, now six months in.
Kyiv was designed to drive Russian troops out of Kherson and other southern territories near the Dnieper. In recent days, Russia is moving troops and equipment in the direction of the southern port city to thwart a Ukrainian counteroffensive.
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“At every stage of this conflict, we’ve been focused on getting the Ukrainians what they need, depending on changing conditions on the battlefield,” Colin Carr, the undersecretary of defense for policy, said Monday in announcing the new weapons. indicated during transport.
The new U.S. aid includes additional rockets for the High Mobility Rocket Artillery System (HIMARS), as well as thousands of rounds of artillery shells, mortar systems, javelins and other ammunition and equipment. Military commanders and other U.S. officials say HIMARS and artillery systems have played a key role in Ukraine’s fight to prevent Russia from taking more territory.
While the U.S. has already provided Ukraine with 16 HIMARS, Kahl said the new package does not include additional packages.
“These systems are not the hundreds of systems we need to evaluate to produce the type of effects we need,” Kahl said. “These are precision guidance systems for very specific types of targets, and the Ukrainians are using them.”
He declined to say how many precision-guided missile systems for HIMARS were included in Monday’s announcement, but said the United States had provided “hundreds” in recent weeks.
The latest announcement brings the total amount of U.S. security aid pledged by the Biden administration to Ukraine to more than $9 billion.
In a nightly video address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked the U.S. for the package and said “we will use 100 percent of our funding to protect freedom, our common freedom.”
The largest single security assistance package to date was the $1 billion announced on June 15. But the aid includes $350 million in presidential drawing rights and another $650 million under the Ukraine Security Assistance Program, which funds training, equipment and other security needs that can be purchased from other countries or companies.
Monday’s package enables the U.S. to deliver weapons systems and other equipment faster as it removes them from Defense Department shelves.
In addition to the HIMARS rockets, it includes 75,000 rounds of 155mm guns, 20 mortar systems with 20,000 rounds of ammunition, 1,000 shoulder-fired Javelin rockets, as well as other weapons, explosives and medical equipment.
In the last four months of the war, Russia has focused on capturing the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, where pro-Moscow separatists have taken control of some territory, proclaiming itself a republic for eight years. Russian troops have made gradual inroads in the region, while launching missile and rocket attacks to limit the movement of Ukrainian fighters elsewhere.
Carr estimates that Russian troops killed and wounded as many as 80,000 people in the fighting, although he did not break down the death toll.
He said Russian forces have managed to gain “incremental” positions in eastern Ukraine, although not in recent weeks. “But that has come at a huge cost to the Russian military because the Ukrainian military is doing so well, and all the aid that the Ukrainian military is getting. And I think the situation in the east has basically stabilized now, and the focus has really shifted to the south.”
The new funding will come through $40 billion in economic and security aid to Ukraine approved by Congress in May.
This is the 18th time the Pentagon has provided Ukraine with equipment from the Defense Department’s stockpile since August 2021.
Carr said the United States and allies are still evaluating whether to provide Ukraine with aircraft. “It’s not inconceivable that Western aircraft along the way could be part of that,” he said.
In the early days of the war, Zelensky called for warplanes almost daily, saying they were vital to protecting Ukraine’s skies. The U.S. and some other NATO nations, fearing that would make them more directly involved in Ukraine’s war against Russia, have not provided Western aircraft.
Separately on Monday, the U.S. Treasury Department said it would provide $3 billion in direct economic aid to Ukraine. This is part of a previously approved $7.5 billion in economic aid, with another $1.5 billion still to be disbursed.
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