President Biden on Wednesday announced new military aid for Ukraine worth nearly $3 billion, marking the single largest weapons package for Kyiv since Russia launched its invasion on February 24.
The Pentagon detailed the contents of the $2.98 billion package and said it demonstrates the US commitment to “supporting Ukraine over the long term.” The Pentagon said the new aid represents “multi-year investments to build the enduring strength of Ukraine’s Armed Forces.”
The new weapons package includes:
- Six additional National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) with additional munitions for NASAMS
- Up to 245,000 rounds of 155mm artillery ammunition
- Up to 65,000 rounds of 120mm mortar ammunition
- Up to 24 counter-artillery radars
- Puma Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) and support equipment for Scan Eagle UAS systems
- VAMPIRE Counter-Unmanned Aerial Systems
- Laser-guided rocket systems
- Funding for training, maintenance, and sustainment
The funds are being pulled from the $40 billion Ukraine aid bill President Biden signed in May. The weapons will be sent to Ukraine through a program known as the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), which allows the US government to purchase equipment for Kyiv from the arms industry.
The Pentagon said that the announcement marks the beginning of the contract process to purchase the weapons for Ukraine. Most weapons the US has sent to Ukraine were done under the Presidential Drawdown Authority, which allows President Biden to send arms directly from US military stockpiles. The new package brings the total of direct military aid for Kyiv since the war started to about $13.6 billion.
This is MIC corporate welfare disguised as weapons for Ukraine that will happen in the future. And it is not even new money but a tranche of the $40 billion USD aid bill signed in May by Biden. So it is all optics designed for the MSM to snow the US and EU sheeple and especially for the Zelensky puppet and his Ukronazis and the Ukraine sheeple.
It would be interesting to know what percentage of the US political class’s support for Ukraine has to do with actual foreign policy goals (e.g. isolating Russia) and how much of it is more about shoveling money at US “defense” contractors.
Presumably those contractors took a big hit with the withdrawal from Afghanistan on everything from sales to the former regime’s army (financed by Uncle Sugar, of course) to US base maintenance contracts and such, even setting aside direct expenditures on weapons and gear for US troops. Now all of a sudden they’re making bank again. Imagine that.
No one can deny that war is the best business there is, even better than health and finances, but even their business profiteers. The upper 1% can only win, the longer it lasts the better, nothing like continuing wars, like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Ukraine without any interruption, they even overlap.
Who is the owner of that big yacht they say belonged to Putin, where is it anyway? It has to belong to some Washington/WS based war profiteer, who else could afford it?
And our country does not account same for infrastructure repair here!
They get artillery that takes months or years to learn to operate. Meanwhile the Ukrainian soldiers have to share Kalashnikovs, and they have to buy their own body armor and helmets. Smart priorities.
On the other hand, the body armor gets stolen and sold. Even first-aid kits donated to Ukraine get stolen before they reach the front, according to volunteer nurses. One nurse said she had to hide painkilling medicine under diapers because the soldiers and those in charge at the border would steal it otherwise. She had to travel to the front herself because no one on the way could be trusted.
So maybe do concentrate on giving them heavy artillery. It’s more difficult for the soldiers, the police, the local politicians, the bureaucrats, the Ukrainian nurses and doctors, to steal.
I do not love Putin and Russia but he is only defending his country.the best he.can with the biggest war mongering power in history feeding and nurturing a fascist loaded opponent.Russia has had to deal with this once before.The US can not and will.not stop this nonsensical behavior until we are all.deceased.
“Multi-year investments” for a war which is already lost. In reality, multi-year investments for the US military-industrial complex.
So true!
I know you know this. But just to reiterate. Biden doesn’t care who wins the war. His goal is to weaken Russia.
Joey Biden doesn’t care about weakening Russia.
The Biden Crime Family just cares about how much they can steal from any aid shipments to Ukraine. Hunter Biden is the front man and Joey Biden gets 10% of the remaining stolen cash.
Over 70% of the weapons arriving in Ukraine are sold on the black market and the cash generated is substantial.
Perhaps all cash payments to the Biden Crime Family go to Hunter Biden’s Ukrainian address and his bank accounts in Ukraine!
We haven’t seen action like this since Al Capone!
Sleepy Joe’s big worry is drooling in public or falling asleep in public
You don’t need to spell it out Richard, abbreviate it! The MIC!
And after they get their ass kicked in Ukraine and all the weapons they shipped disappear they will have to make new ones to ship in future wars against Iran,Syria and China.The MIC can not afford to ever run out of killing toys or wars in to use them.
To the extent that there was much of a plan, it seems to have been “use the Russians’ short, sharp campaign in Ukraine to make bank on a frightened western Europe re-militarizing.”
Now that the Russian forces have inadvertently revealed that they’re a fourth-rate military power, that’s probably not going to work out, and the fallback is to just sell as much stuff as possible for use in Ukraine itself before Putin finds a “declare victory and GTFO” pretext.
Not sure how you come up with a 4th rate military. Russia invaded Ukraine with 190,000 troops. They were outnumbered by the AFU by a 2 : 1 ratio. Tactical doctrine dictates an attacking force requirements for success against a peer military is 2.5 or 3:1. That means the Russian military, which looks like it is decisively beating the US/NATO armed and trained AFU, would ranked pretty high. Higher than, say, a military that loses to low technology adversaries riding bicycles and using home made AK 47’s and ied’s.
So…. it appears that the Russian military is actually outperforming the AFU by a 6 to 1 margin. I guess we’ll see in the next couple months though.
The Russians also appear to be winning the economic war. They are actually making a greater profit from the sanctions. Those sanctions are destabilizing EU governments.
The information war is currently being won by the West, but that seems to be becoming more contested.
The diplomatic war is going Russia’s way. Most of the populations of Asia, Africa, South America and Central America are skeptical of US foreign policies. For good reasons.
US and it’s client states have economies that are increasingly fragile.
Well, part of being a fourth-rate military would be ignoring tactical doctrine and using far too small an invasion force to get the job done. Good catch, thanks for bringing it up.
The Russians figured that’s all the troops needed to get the job done. It appears they were correct. You keep on missing that.
So….. The “gas station with the economy of Nigeria ” (your description of the Russian Federation), appears to be on the brink of defeating a NATO trained and armed military that is larger that any EU nation has.
The “gas station with the economy of Nigeria ” is profiting from the sanctions placed on them. The EU alone is losing close to $1 billion per day. And it may be getting worse for the EU.
“The Russians figured that’s all the troops needed to get the job done. It appears they were correct. You keep on missing that.”
No, I didn’t miss that they are now six months into a one-week military task and have yet to accomplish that task.
And they “appear to be on the brink” of defeating Ukraine in the same sense that you “appear to be on the brink” of traveling to the moon by squatting and farting really hard.
My, my. You just get more ridiculous by the day.
Methinks it’s Thomas and his pea soup that gives him wings, so to speak ..
A lot of “experts” are telling us that Russia has failed. Almost all of them base this conclusion on their own ideas about what Russia is trying to accomplish and how long that should take. But as I look at the map, I see that all of the areas claimed by Luhansk have now been taken from Kyev, and each week that passes reveals an expansion of the areas of Donetsk that have been taken from Kyev. Since the “liberation” of the Donbass was one of the goals actually stated by Russia when the invasion began, I’d say they’re doing very well…. despite the billions of military and financial aid that has been pumped in to oppose their effort.
The final few square miles of the Donbass are going to be difficult for Russia because Ukraine has had 8 years to build up fortifications there. But it would be a mistake to assume that Russia’s’ slow progress there is an indication of failure.
At the beginning of the invasion, Putin announced that the goal was to “de-militarize and de-Nazify Ukraine” — that is, regime change — and much of his casus belli relied on justified complaints about Ukraine working too closely with NATO, even to the point of looking at prospective membership.
At the beginning of the invasion, most observers, regardless of which side if any they sympathized with, expected the Russian forces to “win” in short order, although some (including me) assumed that the Russian leaders were rational actors, that their real objective was to secure LPR/DPR and a land corridor from there to Crimea, and that e.g. the move toward Kyiv was merely a feint to tied down Ukrainian forces.
Ever SINCE the invasion began, those who are all in for the Russian side have insisted that those things are going to happen REAL SOON NOW (first it was going to take a week, then it was going to take a month, then it was going to be by midsummer, now it’s “you just wait for winter, THEN we’ll see”).
In the meantime, everyone else has noticed that after six months the Russian forces still haven’t been even been able to completely secure an area smaller than Georgia (which they defeated in a few days in 2008), even though that area’s populace supposedly overwhelmingly supports them.
It’s not a matter of what anyone thinks should have happened or should be happening. It’s a matter of what has happened and is happening.
Can the Russians “win” in terms of achieving rational goals? Yes, they can probably secure LPR, DPR, and the land corridor. More than that, highly unlikely.
Will the “win” come with costs? Yes. Among other things, the remainder of Ukraine is now, and will remain, a de facto NATO member state, Finland and Sweden are joining NATO, etc.
Will the “win” come with benefits outside of the theater of operations? Yes. Among other things, the Russian regime seems to be doing fairly well at putting together a competitive trading bloc that makes it less reliant on the EU as a market for its energy exports, and its other participants also less reliant on “the west,” which will increase the pace of the US empire’s decline.
There will also be other long-term consequences, some of them obvious and some not, some negative and some positive.
Long, flowery and not exceedingly original interpretation of reality, presumably on behalf and for the benefit of the kyiv regime.
Meanwhile, in Ukraine, courtesy of the US State Department and Your kind prayers, no doubt, as of August 23, 2022:
https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/08/23/in-just-under-three-weeks-ukrainian-fired-prohibited-petal-mines-maim-at-least-44-civilians-kill-2-in-donetsk-region/
“Presumably” and “no doubt” indeed, if you live in some kind of fantasy alternate universe.
Absolutely, “in some kind of fantasy alternate universe” is EXACTLY where You reside permanently Thomas, as we discussed earlier.
Eva Karen Bartlett and Jeffrey D. Sachs do NOT:
https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/08/23/in-just-under-three-weeks-ukrainian-fired-prohibited-petal-mines-maim-at-least-44-civilians-kill-2-in-donetsk-region/
https://consortiumnews.com/2022/08/24/the-western-narrative-on-russia-china/
Regardless of what You think about them.
It’s not complicated.
Even setting aside the question of whether they once fantasized about taking all of Ukraine, the proof is in the pudding.
After six months, the Russian forces still haven’t secured a bloc of territory, supposedly full of fervent supporters, that’s smaller than an entire country they whipped in a few days 14 years ago.
And no, it’s not because they’re a bunch of hippy dippy doos who are putting military objectives second to minimizing civilian casualties. The best way to minimize civilian casualties is to get the job done quickly. Which they presumably would have done if they could have done.
Let’s suppose, for a moment, that I am wrong — that they do intend to take all or most of Ukraine, and that they can actually succeed in doing so. How long is it going to take them? A year? A supposed “superpower” taking a year to beat a weak sister like Ukraine still screams “this military is no longer ready for prime time, and any significant regional power can give them the finger with impunity.”
No, it is not complicated at all, Thomas.
You haven’t said anything at all. Once more and just for change.
I’ve said plenty.
“Russia MUST be winning because I WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNTTTTTTTTTTTTT them to be winning” isn’t nothing at all either, but it isn’t much.
Oh, dear ..
Comment from Andrei Martyanov on those NASAMs…
Andrei is worth watching just for his heavily Russian accented “sh*t from shinola”. He’s the cranky retired Russian military expert uncle we all wish we had.
“And then, of course, there is this issue of ECM and no Western system with radar homing ever encountered a serious jamming.”
Very good point.
I wonder how much longer Putin will be willing to play this game with Biden. My guess: not much longer. If I’m right, the padded gloves will come off very soon.
Putin is biding his time and hoping for a new administration moves in. It wont make a difference.
same shit different day
same shit different asshole.
By announcing the type and quantity of weapons listed US is actually advertising its arms for any other slave countries looking to purchase weapons…!
Before these weapons can be delivered Ukraine will cease to exist as a soverign nation. All coastal land will belong to Russia and the remainder will be split between Poland and Hungary.
Novorossiya or New Russia also referred to as the Union of People’s Republics confederation of the Donetsk People’s Republic and lands stretching to Moldavia will be part of Russia.
Perhaps any and all of the cash payments in aid will go to Hunter Biden’s Ukrainian address?
Indeed, the delivery schedule doesn’t even begin before the start of next year, by which time Ukraine will have exercised the military tactic with a long and storied history: unconditional surrender.
So the whole $2.9 billion is in fact a fabulous bit of propaganda Kabuki. As Scott Ritter has observed, “Bold rhetoric has no effect against cold steel.”
I’m waiting to see (1)how the Propaganda War will spin the utter destruction of Ukraine scheduled to arrive before the first anniversary of the start of the SMO, (2) what Europe — and Germany in particular — will look like by Feb 24th, 2023, in the depth of winter, and (3)what the US will look like after Nov 8th, and then after Jan 3rd.
Interesting times.
Besides not being “new money,” and so a redundant “announcement’ in a long series of redundant announcements, there is also this:
This USAI package, which is being announced on Ukraine Independence Day, underscores the U.S. commitment to supporting Ukraine over the long term – representing a multi-year investments to build the enduring strength of Ukraine’s Armed Forces as it continues to defend its sovereignty in the face of Russian aggression. Unlike Presidential Drawdown (PDA), which DoD has continued to leverage to deliver equipment to Ukraine from DoD stocks at a historic pace, USAI is an authority under which the United States procures capabilities from industry. This announcement represents the beginning of a contracting process to provide additional priority capabilities to Ukraine in the mid- and long-term to ensure Ukraine can continue to defend itself as an independent, sovereign and prosperous state. It is the biggest tranche of security assistance for Ukraine to date.
Which means that the “capabilities” are not going to to reach the Ukraine for quite some time, even taking them at their word. “The beginning of a contracting process” is a long, long distance away from the “capabilities” arriving on the battlefield. The goods are not even in existence, at this time. Nor have the contracts to build them even been bid on, much less awarded, never mind work actually starting on them. How meaningless is to say that, for example, “Well, ya know, someday, we are going to send a quarter million rounds of 155mm artillery shells to the Ukraine. Someday.” In the “mid to long term.” IE not now. Not anytime soon. But someday, they will get those rounds! After we go through a nice, long, very profitable for all concerned, “process.”
Propaganda for the phony Kiev Neo Nazi regime “independence day,” complete with oligatory phony reference to “Russian aggression.” Long on PR, short on firepower. And also no new money. Not for the Ukraine, anyway!
All useless…
US weapons are killing more Ukrainians than Russians.
“multi-year investments to build the enduring strength of Ukraine’s Armed Forces.” … I bet that blurb is popular in the trenches- “Hey guys, how’s your “enduring strength” doing? Anybody left?”
Waiting for Sept. 30th to see what balls by his knees will ask for after the $40 billion has been extinguished.
The SMO may have started 24th February but the aggression that lead to the SMO started in 2014. Russia is not guilty of aggression, the western powers are. And without our aggression none of this would of occurred, hence why the Hague calls aggression the Supreme International Crime.
The SMO occurred after 2 prior wars in the Donbass which lead to 2 peace agreements that we broke. Remember the Minsk agreements? Brokered by Russia and were suppose to lead to peace.
We, the Golden Billion, are supreme international criminals.
According to the Hague the supreme international crime is the crime of aggression. In 2014 we overthrew the Government in Kiev and placed literal Nazi’s in power who started an ethnic cleansing campaign of Russian speakers in the Donbass.
It was the US that shot and murdered police and civilians in the maidan, Brian Christopher Boyenger ran a crew of NATO funded snipers who operated from the Ukraina Hotel that was locked down by the Right Sector (Openly Neo Nazi Paramiltary Organisation) at the time.
It was Brian Christopher Boyenga who was embedded with the Azov Battalion (Openly Neo Nazi Paramiltary Organisation) who he trained and supplied US weapons to, which btw were used for the attempted ethnic cleansing of the Donbass. The US Rand corporation documented the process to ethnicly cleanse the Donbass of Russian speakers, which btw included concentration camps.
Obama himself admitted he overthrew Yanuchovich. Its not that Obama wanted to kill them all, if they fled to Russia that achieved the same goal. Obama needed to ethnically cleanse the Donbass to ensure that the Racist/Fascist Junta he placed in power could stay in power. The Russian speakers in Ukraine held the balance of power and had to be removed if the Junta was to stay in power.
More TREASON within Ukraine! It never ends:
Zelensky has accused ex-president Poroshenko of “treason,” and had him arrested but was forced by the West to let him go for now.
Also … two oligarchs close to Poroshenko have ended up dead in the last month.
As The New Atlas says on YouTube, Zelensky seems to be consolidating power with the war as cover, and that means striking against the Poroshenko faction.