The Biden administration is poised to dramatically expand the scope of weapons it is providing Ukraine, U.S. officials said Tuesday, with the Pentagon looking to transfer armored Humvees and a range of other sophisticated equipment,
The Washington Post reports.
The new aid package could be worth $750 million, these people said. Like others, they spoke on the condition of anonymity because the transfer has not yet been finalized.
Preliminary plans circulating among government officials and lawmakers in Washington also included Mi-17 helicopters, howitzer cannons, coastal defense drones and protective suits to safeguard personnel in the event of a chemical, biological or nuclear attack, the officials said, though they cautioned that it was not immediately clear if all of those items would end up in the final aid package.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby declined to comment. On Tuesday night, after this article was published, another U.S. defense official said the Russian-made helicopters would not be included.
The prospective new delivery, first reported by Reuters, comes on top of the more than $2.4 billion in U.S. security assistance provided to Ukraine since President Biden took office last year, including $1.7 billion in aid since Russia launched its special military operation on Feb. 24.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his administration have pleaded for more sophisticated weapons to counter the Russian military’s technological advantages. Ukraine’s military has defied initial expectations and mounted a ferocious resistance, having already staved off a bloody, weeks-long assault on the capital, Kyiv, that was aimed at toppling Zelensky’s administration. As a result, Russia has shifted its objectives, consolidating its assault on key cities in the south and in the east.
As of Tuesday, the Pentagon was close to completing delivery of the last items in an $800 million security assistance package approved by Biden on March 16 and a $100 million set of shipments approved last week, the senior defense official said. The larger package included Switchblade drones that can be armed with explosives and flown into targets, Stinger antiaircraft missiles, and anti-armor weapons including Javelin missiles. The package approved last week included additional Javelins, after a request from Ukraine as it prepares for a renewed Russian offensive in the east.
“These items are not sitting around very long,” the senior defense official said. “Once they get into the transshipment sites, they are palletized and put on trucks, those trucks are picked up by Ukrainian armed forces and taken into Ukraine.”
