US to announce £393m in weapons and military aid for Ukraine
26 June 2023, 22:34
The aid is aimed at bolstering Ukraine’s counter-offensive, which has been moving slowly in its early stages.
The Pentagon is to announce it is sending up to 500 million dollars (£393 million) in military aid to Ukraine, including more than 50 heavily armoured vehicles and missiles for air defence systems, US officials said.
The aid is aimed at bolstering Ukraine’s counter-offensive, which has been moving slowly in its early stages.
It was not clear on Monday if Ukrainian forces will be able to take advantage of the disarray in the Russian ranks after a short-lived rebellion by Yevgeny Prigozhin and the Wagner mercenary group he has controlled.
An announcement on the aid package is expected on Tuesday.
It would be the 41st time since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 that the US has provided weapons and equipment through presidential drawdown authority. The programme allows the Pentagon to quickly take items from its own stocks and deliver them to Ukraine.
Because the aid packages are generally planned in advance and recently included many of the same critical weapons for the battlefront, the contents are not likely to have been chosen based on the weekend rebellion.
But the missiles and heavy vehicles can be used as Ukraine tries to capitalise on what has been a growing feud between the Wagner Group leader and Russia’s military leaders, with simmering questions about how many of Mr Prigozhin’s forces may leave the fight.
The mercenaries left Ukraine to seize a military headquarters in a southern Russian city and moved hundreds of miles towards Moscow before turning around after less than 24 hours on Saturday.
According to the officials, the US will send 30 Bradley Fighting Vehicles and 25 Stryker armoured vehicles to Ukraine, along with missiles for the High-Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) and the Patriot air defence systems.
The package will include Javelin and high-speed anti-radiation (HARM) missiles, demolition munitions, obstacle-clearing equipment and a wide range of artillery rounds and other ammunition.
According to the Pentagon, the US has delivered more than 15 billion dollars (£11 billion) in weapons and equipment from its stocks to Ukraine since the Russian invasion, and has committed an additional 6.2 billion dollars (£4.8 billion) in supplies that have not yet been identified.
The extra is the result of an accounting error, because the military services overestimated the value of the weapons they pulled off the shelves and sent to Ukraine over the past year.
