US to announce new $400 million military aid package for Ukraine
The package comes as Russia launches a major offensive in Kharkiv.
The United States will announce a new $400 million military aid package for Ukraine on Friday, just as it appears Russia has launched a major offensive in Kharkiv.
The package, which will involve transferring weapons already in U.S. stocks, includes new Patriot missiles, Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, Bradley fighting vehicles, mine-protected vehicles, Javelin anti-armor systems and other munitions.
The latest tranche comes after months of wrangling over authorizing $60 billion in more military assistance for Ukraine in Congress. Lawmakers sent the national security supplemental, which also included support for the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific region, to President Joe Biden’s desk last month.
The National Security Council didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The information on Friday’s package was according to two U.S. officials, a person familiar and a notification sent to Congress obtained by POLITICO. The people were granted anonymity to speak ahead of the official announcement.
The Biden administration had assessed that Ukraine could at most hold its lines without American aid, but could claw back some seized territory from Russia once it received the U.S.-provided weapons.
Ukraine faces yet another brutal test as Russia on Friday launched a ground attack in the northeastern Kharkiv region. “Russia has begun a new wave of counteroffensive actions in this direction,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters Friday. “Ukraine has met them there with our troops, brigades and artillery.”
The Ukrainian Defense Ministry announced it is swiftly sending reserve units to the region to help repel the attack.
In March, Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed to create a “sanitary zone” that would help protect his forces against long-range Ukrainian attacks that occasionally strike targets inside sovereign Russian territory. Russian military bloggers suggested the Kharkiv offensive was part of that long-promised effort.
The U.S. secretly sent a significant number of long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems to Ukraine in April, with Kyiv using the weapon at least twice before the transfer became public. That delivery followed the provision of similarly long-range missiles from the United Kingdom and France to Ukraine.
During a visit to Washington on Thursday, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius announced his government would send three more High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems to Ukraine.
“They come from U.S. armed forces’ stocks and will be paid by us,” he said following a meeting with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. Ukraine has 20 of the systems, which can launch long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems and other precision munitions, but has lost several to Russian fire in recent months.
Adm. Antony Radakin, U.K.’s chief of the Defense Staff, told reporters in Washington on Thursday that by June, Russia will have lost 500,000 troops killed or wounded in Ukraine, and that despite losing some territory this year, Kyiv retains “the strategic upper hand” now that more military aid is flowing from the U.S. and allies.