The White House announced a $270 million weapons package Kiev on Friday. The latest transfer will send four additional High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS and drones to Ukraine.
The additional four HIMARS brings the total number the US has committed to sending to Ukraine to 16. Commander of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley said the other 12 HIMARS have reached Ukraine and have not been destroyed by Russia. The US has provided Ukraine with rockets that can be fired 50 miles by the rocket systems.
John Kirby, communications director for the National Security Council, announced the package on Friday. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told reporters on Wednesday the US would be sending the additional HIMARS.
The package also includes 36,000 rounds of artillery ammunition for howitzers and 560 Phoenix Ghost tactical drones. The latest transfer is the 17th approved by the White House since Russia invaded Ukraine in February. The Biden administration has now committed over $8 billion in weapons to Kiev’s fight.
Russia has been critical of arms assistance to Ukraine from the US and its allies. The HIMARS have drawn particular ire from the Kremlin because of the platform’s long range. Ukrainian officials have recently suggested the HIMARS could be used in an offensive to retake the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014.
Last week, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the Kremlin had decided to take more Ukrainian territory because of the advanced weapons the West sent to Kiev. "That means the geographical tasks will extend still further from the current line. We cannot allow the part of Ukraine that Zelensky will control or whoever replaces him to have weapons that will pose a direct threat to our territory and the territory of those republics that have declared their independence," he said.
Kyle Anzalone is the opinion editor of Antiwar.com, news editor of the Libertarian Institute, and co-host of Conflicts of Interest.
The tragedy of sending vast amounts of US taxpayer’s money to a corrupt regime is that — tragic for US citizens who are the pawns of politicians who care only about their careers. US citizens know little about Europe, let alone Eastern Europe, and yet here we are, being played as heart-wrenching scenes and scenerios are presented to us as real. Some are, some aren’t. Well aware of their lack of any depth of understanding of the deep, complex histories of the rest of the world, the US founders warned against foreign entanglements. Do our politicians know as little as the general public, a dangerous bit more, or are they just completely, unashamedly selling a blockbuster movie, hoping somehow to duck and cover under the theater seats when the nukes fall?
It’s sad that our ray of hope is the possibility their bloodsoaked blithering is just an act. If we give them the benefit of the doubt, which direction would that be?
Already lots of these US weapons are finding their way in the international underground arms markets. The Kiev military has been selling left and right. Wonder howling before a Untied Airliner gets manpad’d
Senile Joe Biden is a sick angry old man with no idea what he does or talks about without his dementia pills to help mouth words from his handlers.
If you look closely CT, there is hand underneath his collar moving his mouth!
you think bidette is in charge? lol
Are these gifts or must Ukraine eventually pay? If these are gifts we pay.
For the amount of money being spent, we should just adopt Ukraine and make it a US state…
Not if ZelBoy comes with it Donna!
US won’t do that because Ukraine does not have any oil…!
Russia has lots of oil and gas, and that’s what the new Axis consisting of US/UK/Zionist Israel covets.
The US doesn’t want the Russian oil and gas. The US wants the Russian oil and gas off the market to keep prices high so that US oil and gas are profitable.
One main job of every US president is to keep oil/gas prices high, while simultaneously convincing the public that he or she wants to keep oil/gas prices low. US shale oil isn’t profitable to extract once the price drops below about $60 a barrel.
Is TOSCO still around?
The US got Iraq’s oil, and other resources from other countries it made war on, so why not Russia?
Just plain great! Our taxpayer dollars are sending more targets for Russia!
Biden/Blinken has made it clear that he wants to drag this conflict out for as long as possible. But tensions are rising in Europe as England, France, Germany, Italy, and other countries begin to realize how serious their situation is becoming. He may soon discover that dragging out this conflict costs him more than it’s costing Russia.
Biden will not be around next year, let alone 2024. Will not affect anything. The hegemon rolls along no matter who is in the WH.
This is what Austin and Milley plus puppet Biden call the USA’s” defense”.
Americans feel helpless and have no ability to change anything in Wash. foreign policy. When the Dems. are voted out, the Reps. will just pick up where they left off. The state does what it wants to enrich those who donate to their campaigns. It’s all about money because republics are a symbiosis of money/power with both factions serving the other to increase their power and money. And war is good business for both sides, isn’t it? Nothing will change until the missiles start flying into the USA and Americans see their own children lying dead in the rubble of their homes and cities. Then, just maybe it will occur to Americans that their taxes have been used to destroy other lives and homes abroad, which is of NO BENEFIT to America, unless one believes the oligarchs and Plutocrats who profit are America!
And at the end of it all, Ukraine will lose and the West gains nothing….
As Mercouris has pointed out, by sending HIMARS and thus “forcing” Russia to extend its advance west in order to curtail their use, the US is actually helping Russia justify its further advance past Donbass both to the Russian people and the rest of the world. Highly amusing that the US is actually helping Russia in the propaganda war.
Of course, I am on record (as Martyanov likes to say) that Russia’s intent was always to take all of Ukraine in order to place strategic weapons in western Ukraine to counter the Aegis Ashore installations in Poland and Romania. Even Mercouris is coming around to the view that Russia is likely to go all the way to Lvov as a result of what Lavrov has said: that Russia can not allow any part of Ukraine to be a threat to Russia or the Ukrainian territories Russia controls.
That point is “recursive” as we say in the computer industry. The further you push the HIMARS back, they remain a threat – until there is no longer a Ukraine to send them to. In other words, push them back to Poland. Which requires controlling all of Ukraine. Lavrov’s statement is the first time a high-ranking Russian has said this – although, of course, if you parse Putin’s words early on correctly, this was implied by the objective of insuring Russian security, as I have stated for months now. As long as any part of the current regime exists in Ukraine – or any “rump state” – NATO will be a threat in it. Russia will not allow this.
And it all gets blown up. I could use some of that money for gasoline and food.
For every dollar that goes into Ukraine there are 5 that go to weapons manufactures in the USA.,
four HIMARS
These have already been destroyed along with personnel most likely Amerikan contractors. Send more is good business for Amerikan weapons suppliers. No money Amerikans on Main Street but plenty for ukraine
Imagine how many towns and people all this money could’ve helped.
its obvious that the usa is being drained of the ability to defend itself.
If US military funding was cut by 90%, it would still be better positioned to “defend itself” than pretty much any other country on earth.
you believe that? lol besides the heightened permanent paranoia the military suffers from,sending all its weapons to ukraine will leave the usa wide open.
Do you believe that the weapons being sent from the US to Ukraine are diminishing US stocks?
Sending US weapons to Ukraine is, in large part, an excuse for buying more, newer weapons for the US itself. Just like when I was in the Marine Corps they sent all our old Vietnam-era 81mm mortars to various client states (including Saudi Arabia, some of whose troops I trained on that system) and replaced them with a new model.
If the US eliminated its standing army in favor of a volunteer militia with a small full-time training cadre and cut its navy to three carrier groups, it could fight any plausible defensive war with one hand tied behind its back.
lol lol of course its diminishing the “stock”. can’t “buy” newer when the country is broke. not to mention newer are most likely poorly made. of course the usa paranoia of the world factors in too. the “standing ‘ army is itself a joke.
Yes, it is diminishing the expired and obsolete stock.
The US Army, for example, has been hot on replacing its M119 howitzers with the newer M777 since 2019 … and what’s going to the Ukrainians are the old M119s, which allows the Army to speed up its replacement schedule.
The 2022 “National Defense Authorization Act” included $132 billion for “procurement” of weapons and ammunition, including “the divestment of legacy systems” in favor of new ones.
The “country” — actually the government — has been “broke” through much of its existence, in debt and borrowing to buy. That will likely come to a bad end at some point, but it hasn’t yet, and the government is spending more than it ever has on everything, including at least ten times as much as necessary for actual “defense” (as opposed to playing world cop).
lol lol newer cheaper crap that is defective. uh huh.
i doubt that.
https://journal-neo.org/2022/07/24/how-the-us-is-killing-its-principal-competitor-the-eu/
How the US is killing its principal competitor–the EU. Authored by Vladimir Danilov.
Brian Berletic at The New Atlas Youtube channel has a nice comparison of the capabilities of the HIMARS vs the Russian Tornado rocket system. He points out that if the HIMARS could change the course of the war, then the Russian Tornado, which is superior in every way, can also alter the course. So Ukraine loses again.
US HIMARS vs. Russia’s Tornado-S