WASHINGTON —The United States on Wednesday introduced further safety help of about $1.3 billion for Ukraine in its conflict with Russia, the package deal together with air protection capabilities, drones and munitions.
“This announcement represents the beginning of a contracting process to provide additional priority capabilities to Ukraine,” the Pentagon mentioned in an announcement.
The United States is utilizing funds in its Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI) program, which permit President Joe Biden’s administration to purchase weapons from business relatively than pull from U.S. weapons shares.
The package deal consists of 4 National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) and munitions; 152 millimeter artillery rounds; mine clearing gear; and drones, in line with the Pentagon.
The U.S. Department of Defense introduced the help a day after a digital assembly of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, allies helping Ukraine as its forces press a counteroffensive towards Russian troops occupying Ukrainian territory.
Delivery of the weapons and programs relies on their availability and manufacturing timeline.
The Pentagon has supplied greater than $10.8 billion in safety help for Ukraine beneath the USAI in fiscal 2023, in seven separate tranches. The deliberate package deal could be the eighth. In the fiscal 12 months that ended Sept. 30, 2022, Washington put $6.3 billion value of USAI funds to work shopping for for Ukraine’s protection.
Overall, the U.S. has despatched over $40 billion within the type of safety and army help to Ukraine since Russia invaded in February 2022.
The package deal consists of two several types of loitering munitions, the Phoenix Ghost drone made by AVEVEX, a non-public firm in California, and the Switchblade, made by AeroVironment.
Earlier this month, the United States introduced that it’s going to ship Ukraine cluster munitions – prohibited by greater than 100 nations – to Ukraine. Human rights teams and a few U.S. allies, together with Germany and Canada, oppose that call.—Reuters
Source: www.gmanetwork.com
