The United States will provide $425 million worth of additional arms and equipment to Ukraine for its ongoing fight against Russia's invasion, the Biden administration announced on Friday,
Reuters reports.
The package uses the last of the funds in the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), a more than $18 billion fund that allowed the Biden administration to buy weapons from industry, rather than pull from U.S. weapons stocks.
The USAI funds will be put toward $300 million worth of laser-guided munitions to shoot down Russian drones, which will include some for the Vehicle Agnostic Modular Palletized ISR Rocket Equipment (VAMPIRE) kit made by L3Harris Technologies (LHX.N), a U.S. official and a person familiar with the matter told Reuters.
The administration also announced $125 million worth of weapons pledges made possible by utilizing the Presidential Drawdown Authority, which authorizes President Joe Biden to transfer excess articles and services from U.S. stocks without congressional approval during an emergency.