Washington.- The United States will send Ukraine an undisclosed number of intermediate-range cluster bombs and a range of rockets, artillery batteries and armoured vehicles as part of a military aid package totalling some $375 million, US officials said Tuesday.
Officials are planning an official announcement on Wednesday, on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy using his appearance at the event to shore up support and persuade the U.S. to allow them to use long-range weapons to launch strikes on Russian soil. Zelenskyy is scheduled to meet a day later with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in Washington.
The aid package includes air-to-surface bombs, which are cluster munitions and can be fired by Ukrainian fighter jets, as well as shells for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), Javelin and other anti-armor systems, mine- and ambush-resistant protected vehicles, bypass systems and other military vehicles and equipment, according to U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because a public announcement about the aid shipment has not yet been made.
The latest arms package, to be provided by presidential decree, is one of the largest ever approved in recent memory and will be sourced from the Pentagon’s own arsenals to ensure the weapons reach Ukraine as quickly as possible.
The move comes as nearly $6 billion in funding for Ukraine could expire at the end of the month unless Congress takes action to expand the Pentagon’s authority to send weapons from its own arsenals to Ukraine. Congressional leaders announced Sunday that they had reached an agreement on a short-term spending bill, but it’s unclear whether any language expanding the Pentagon’s authority to send weapons to Ukraine will be added to the temporary measure while negotiations with Congress continue.
Ukrainian and Russian forces are clashing in eastern Ukraine, including hand-to-hand fighting in the border region of Kharkiv, where the Ukrainian military has driven Russian forces from a massive processing plant in the town of Vovchansk that had been under occupation for four months, officials said Tuesday. At the same time, Ukrainian forces maintain some control in Russia’s Kursk region after a bold incursion last month.
The aid was announced shortly after Zelenskyy visited a munitions factory in Pennsylvania where he thanked workers producing 155-millimeter shells, one of the most needed munitions for his country’s fight against Russian ground forces.
The United States has provided more than $56.2 billion in military aid to Ukraine, including this latest package, since Russian forces invaded the country in February 2022.
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