On Thursday, the Biden administration announced over $2.8 billion in military aid for Ukraine and US allies in the region. The announcement came as Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a surprise visit to Kyiv, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin chaired a meeting of defense ministers in Germany.
In Kyiv, Blinken met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other officials and said that the administration was providing $2.2 billion in Foreign Military Financing (FMF) for Ukraine and 17 other countries in the region.
FMF is a State Department program that gives money to foreign governments that they can use to purchase US-made military equipment. The $2.2 billion is being pulled from the $40 billion Ukraine aid bill President Biden signed in May, which authorized $4 billion for FMF.
According to The Associated Press, about $1 billion of the $2.2 billion will go to Ukraine. The remaining funds will be divided among Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia.
Over at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany, Austin told a group of officials representing over 50 countries, known as the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, that President Biden approved a new $675 million weapons package for Ukraine.
According to the Pentagon, the arms package includes:
- Additional ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS)
- Four 105mm Howitzers and 36,000 105mm artillery rounds
- Additional High-speed Anti-radiation missiles (HARM)
- 100 Armored High-Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWV)
- 1.5 million rounds of small arms ammunition
- More than 5,000 anti-armor systems
- 1,000 155mm rounds of Remote Anti-Armor Mine (RAAM) Systems
- Additional grenade launchers and small arms
- 50 armored medical treatment vehicles
- Night vision devices and other field equipment
The Pentagon said that the new aid brings the total military assistance the US has pledged since Russia invaded on February 24 to more than $14.5 billion. The $675 million is also being pulled from the $40 billion Ukraine aid bill. The Biden administration told Congress last week that it seeks another $13.7 billion for Ukraine aid as the funds are close to running out.
Austin told the contact group that the new aid will help support Ukraine for the “long haul” as there are no signs that the war will be ending anytime soon. The US and NATO have made clear that they are prepared to support the war against Russia for years to come.
“We will work together to train Ukraine’s forces for the long haul. We will work together to help integrate Ukraine’s capabilities and bolster its joint operations for the long haul,” Austin said.
“We will work together to upgrade our defense industrial basis to meet Ukraine’s requirements for the long haul, and we will work together for production and innovation to meet Ukraine’s self-defense needs for the long haul,” he added.
Austin said that the US and its allies are seeing the “demonstrable success” of their support for Ukraine on the battlefield. But Ukraine is taking heavy losses in its southern counteroffensive and doesn’t appear to be regaining territory.
Is this the government we in the US want? Is this the government we elected? This is the vilest bait and switch. This is what foments internal revolutions. The disregard for human life, for any sense of the manifold unintended consequences. And why, why, why? Because “I MUST BE ELECTED!!!! AT ANY COST! BY HOOK OR BY CROOK!” It’s ME, ME, ME! all the way to Hell.
Its the Government you deserve. I very honest assessment.
Spot on!………… We’re on the express elevator……………………………..
Biden evidently continues to believe that we can use Ukraine bodies to weaken Russia indefinitely. Russia will eventually be pushed into bankruptcy. But Ukraine is running out of bodies, and prolonging the war is hurting his own bottom line. It’s obvious that he didn’t expect to have to go back to Congress so soon. The thousands of troops sent into Russian held areas in the last week are going to have to be fed. Ukraine’s hospitals are filling up. Spent military equipment and munitions will have to be replaced. And the rising cost of food and energy at home is not working in his favor.
“Russia will eventually be pushed into bankruptcy” really?
This was supposed to represent what Biden is thinking, not what I am thinking.
That`s the plan to trash Russia`s economy and weaken the Russian Military to the point it isn`t a viable threat to NATO but the plan has failed , but that won`t stop the Americans doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different outcome.
The Ukrainians want to fight – there is no significant movement to negotiate in Ukraine – so what Biden thinks is not relevant to their motivation – if he decided to stop aid to Ukraine he might eventually make a difference.
Ukraine is a country population wise the size of France on the eve of WWI, Ukraine has not suffered even close to the number of casualties that the French did on average per day for 4 years of WWI, what makes you think that they are running out of bodies?
I’m sure there a people who serve because they want to fight. But I’m also certain that men are being conscripted by force; that untrained soldiers are currently being used as cannon fodder; and that Kraken had to be formed to reduce the number of soldiers who have refused orders, deserted, or flee during battle.
I guess we disagree about Biden’s influence. Ukraine ran out of its own heavy weapons and ammunition months ago.
Nothing different from what has happened in most countries that were invaded by larger neighbors.
The boy has to copy and paste previous comments in order to give a semblance of remembrance about what he is commenting about. Not near as bad as Biden yet, but working his way to that sorry state of mental incapacity.
Russia won`t be pushed into bankruptcy , Putin has already replaced EU customers ect with other more friendly customers who arn`t beholding to the Americans .
All the US is doing is prolonging the war for it`s own interests , they can send as many weapons ect as they like it won`t change the outcome , Russia will win either by military means or Diplomatic means .
My concern for Russia is that they may run out of soldiers.
…especially since Poland is now sending 15,000 of their troops to the front line to fight.
If China starts helping Russia with troops, Poland’s miniscule contribution would be wiped out in short order.
Most of those who believe Russia is winning in Ukraine claim that the Russian military commitment is only a tiny percentage of its available military resources. Why would it need Chinese “help” of that kind?
Because NATO is upping the ante with weaponry and possibly with manpower, that would be why. Wonder why those who claim Ukraine is winning would need those Polish troops? Just going by the notion that both sides might be spouting off about all those victories and both sides might want “foreign troops” to die for them.
Poland and Ukraine are both US satrapies.
Russia and China do not have the same kind of relationship. China is not a Russian satrapy. And Russia, while in decline, is not yet a Chinese satrapy. But accepting that kind of “assistance” would be a big step toward becoming one.
“War! Good God Y’all! What is it good for?! Absolutely nothing!”…
Oh but wait!!! The Military Industrial Complex (MIC) uses war as a proving ground for new weapons and devices for maiming and death…! And to decrease the surplus population!
They cannot wait to use their Death Star!………………………………………………….
Yet another phony “announcement.”
“Ukraine, neighbors, to get big new aid, Blinken says in Kyiv”
Not “new” at all, as the money was already authorized and appropriated. Both of which events were already “announced.” As were the previous umpteen “drawdowns” and “long term commitments” and so on, all from that same authorization and appropriation. And not really all that “big,” either.
…the Biden administration ramped up military aid by more than $2.8 billion to Ukraine and other European countries threatened by Russia.
The new assistance came as the U.S. sought to boost momentum in Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russia — and amid fears that public support is waning as the war drags on…
Nothing was “ramped up.” Nor is the assistance “new” in any meaningful way.
Notice too that only 675 million is going to immediate military shipments to the Ukraine. Another one billion is for “long term” whatever. And the rest of the “long term” money, another billion or so, is not even going to the Ukraine at all, but to NATO allies.
Moldova and Georgia are not even NATO members. $ ! billion is to be split between some seventeen little countries, non of them has any reason the join NATO in a war against Russia on the continent on their soil. They are more cannonfodder for Biden’s war. How despicable Biden is.
They are poor little countries and the US monster is set to sacrifice them to get its claws on the Russian oil. How evil.
Biden is determined to get his NATO war on the continent. And all for a regime change in Russia and the destruction of the nation.
What a bonanza for our military industrial complex. That’s why we always have enemies. Without enemies no profits. When will the national referendum be held on whether Americans want our tax money wasted on a dictatorial regime, or to be used for the American citizens in the US who are being robbed blind by the largesse of the Complex to foreign regimes.
Do you think that Russia is the only country which wants to ‘save’ its compatriots in neighboring countries, especially when doing so allows them to annex the territory they live on together with the natural resources in it?
Khruschev the dictator, whose wife was Ukrainian, illegally ceded Crimea to Ukraine. At least it’s a neighboring country, unlike the break-up of Yugoslavia that we helped along. How did we ever ever survive before sticking our nose into the Ukrainian/Russian dispute?
Crimea was Ukrainian from 1991 to 2014, in 1994 the Russians signed the Budapest memorandum stating that they would respect the Ukrainian borders (including Crimea) and Ukrainian sovereignty – all to get Ukraine to hand back the nuclear weapons it had leftover from the Soviet Union.
What Khruschev did and why, is not relevant to the present day in the sense that all leaders following him have respected the deal and as stated made a new agreement to the effect of ratifying it as late as in 1994. If we now agree to let the Russians tear up that deal without consequences there will never be the possibility to make deal to get countries to end their nuclear weapons programs.
I’d go further there will be a lot of countries starting such programs as that will be about the only way to keep powerful neighbors from correcting borders that they think have been decided with flawed legal justification. So if we do end sanctions on the Russians buy shares in weapons producers, had I known that Putin was going to invade I would have done so already in late 2021 -if I was not so much against it.
They were never Ukraine’s nukes just like our nukes that we withdrew from Turkey during the Cuban Missile Crisis were never Turkey’s.
When Zelensky started “killing his own people”, because of their language and ethnicity and denied them self determination, all previous lies uttered by him about going to push for autonomy for the Donbas, became irrelevant as proven by his actions.
Except they were not under Russian control and hence the Russians could not just withdraw them nor claim them by legal means in fact they did not even try to do so, which kind of tells you that you are likely wrong on this.
When did Zelenskyy start killing his own people? Zelenskyy only became President in 2019 at that point the separatists had been fighting for 5 years – the notion that Zelenskyy started this is just as wrong as the idea that the nukes on Ukrainian territory were legally Russian (they were legally Soviet!).
There is a sad, pathetic, irony in the fact that ignorant brainwashed Westerners are hanging Ukie flags in support of the Nazi regime in Kiev while their own rulers are basically committing genocide against the peoples of the Ukraine!
That is about as ignorant and stupid as ignorant and stupid gets…
It also shows how successfully the public can be manipulated, they hate Russian people on command, people on another continent who never did anything to America, they hate people they know nothing about. They are told to hate and they do it.
In what way are the Biden people different from Hitler and his people?
Biden and his neo-Nazis in Ukraine are war criminals. Morally they are the same. There is no such thing as a little immoral no more than being a little pregnant. They are monsters, just like Hitler and Stalin and all the others before them.
A Nazi regime, where the far right lost their last ember of parliament in 2019 and where they elected a Russian speaking president of Jewish origin? Maybe you are the brainwashed one – or just fairly ignorant of what Nazi’ism was all about?
Who ran on a peace platform and who said he would enact the Budapest Agreement that was negotiated by Germany and France. BTW, Nan the Pelosi and Biden claim to be Catholic too. Seems they could care less about all the death and destruction.
The Budapest agreement was struck by primarily the US, Russia, UK and Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine – in that agreement the signatories specifically agreed to respect the borders of Ukraine (and the other signatories) as well as the sovereignty of it – and it was signed in 1994.
So might you again be completely wrong?
Before we overthrew the democratically elected government of Ukraine that was in power as a result of a free and fair election that included ALL of the former Ukraine including Crimea and the Donbas. And that was before the Zelensky Regime began “killing their own people”.
While it was the elected government, we did not overthrow it – and in the elections following that overthrow all Ukrainians were offered to participate only some of them had been occupied by the Russians and in parts of Luhansk and Donetsk some of the people had sought Russian support to start an insurrection.
The Zelenskyy government did not begin killing their own people – the conflict with the Russian backed separatists had begun much before Zelenskyy was elected.
Who ran on a peace platform and who said he would enact the Budapest Agreement that was negotiated by Germany and France. BTW, some say Hitler was Jewish too. How did that work out?