Biden administration announces new $325 million aid package to Ukraine
Mike Brest
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The Department of Defense announced its latest military aid package to Ukraine on Tuesday, valued at roughly $325 million.
The package includes 10 Stryker and 15 Bradley armored vehicles that will replace those damaged and destroyed in the Ukrainian counteroffensive currently underway. The aid will also have munitions for National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) in addition to more rockets for Ukraine’s High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS).
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President Joe Biden authorized this aid through his presidential drawdown authority, the fortieth such instance, which allows the military to take these weapons from their own stockpiles to provide them to Ukraine. This process takes a much shorter period of time than the alternative, which is when the Department of Defense essentially pays for United States defense contractors to build the weapons and then send them to Ukraine.
Ukraine has begun its long-awaited counteroffensive, and its forces have had some minor success in the start, though the initial phase of such attacks is often the most difficult. They have liberated a handful of villages, though they’re a long way away from their ultimate goal of forcing every Russian troop out of Ukraine.
Sixteen U.S. Bradley infantry fighting vehicles have either been destroyed or damaged and abandoned in recent days, which represents almost 15% of the 109 that Washington has given Kyiv, CNN reported on Monday, citing Jakub Janovsky of the Dutch open-source intelligence website Oryx.
Last week, the administration announced a $2.1 billion military aid package for Ukraine via the Ukraine Security Initiative Assistance (USAI), the longer process. It included additional munitions for the Patriot air defense systems; HAWK air defense systems and missiles; 105mm and 203mm artillery rounds; Puma unmanned aerial systems; laser-guided munitions; and support for training, maintenance, and sustainment activities.
DOD’s inspector general’s office released a new report on Monday concluding that there were “gaps” in the security and oversight process.
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“This report is our first in a body of oversight projects examining the DoD’s security and accountability of defense items transferred to Ukraine,” Inspector General Robert P. Storch said. “While we did not discover any instances where the DoD lost items or transferred excess items, the gaps in accountability we identified could increase the risk of those situations happening in the future.”
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Staff, will travel to Belgium later this week for the monthly Defense Contact Group, which meets to discuss Ukraine’s most pressing needs at the time.