The Pentagon announced a new $1.1 billion arms package for Ukraine on Wednesday that includes 18 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS). So far, the US has delivered Ukraine 16 HIMARS, which are made by Lockheed Martin.
The arms package is being given to Ukraine through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), which allows the Biden administration to purchase arms for Kyiv. A US official said the weapons will take a “few years” to be delivered as Washington plans to arm Ukraine for the “long haul.”
According to the Pentagon, the full arms package includes:
- 18 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and associated ammunition
- 150 Armored High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWVs);
- 150 Tactical Vehicles to tow weapons
- 40 trucks and 80 trailers to transport heavy equipment
- Two radars for Unmanned Aerial Systems
- 20 multi-mission radars
- Counter-Unmanned Aerial Systems
- Tactical secure communications systems, surveillance systems, and optics
- Explosive ordnance disposal equipment
- Body armor and other field equipment
- Funding for training, maintenance, and sustainment
The HIMARS that the US has been sending to Ukraine are equipped with missiles that have a range of about 50 miles. But that can change, and Kyiv is requesting Army Tactical Missile Systems, which have a range of 190 miles, but Washington has been hesitant to send the longer-range missiles. Russia has warned that providing such arms would cross a “red line.”
Also on Wednesday, William LaPlante, the undersecretary of defense for acquisition, met with representatives from 45 nations in Brussels to discuss boosting industrial capacity the make more weapons for Ukraine. According to the Pentagon, LaPlante shared plans to “increase production of ground-based long-range fires, air defense systems, air-to-ground munitions, and other capabilities.”
The Pentagon said that nearly 20 other nations also detailed plans to “strengthen and expand their nations’ industrial base to accelerate production” as part of an effort to provide “long-term support” for Ukraine.
As the US and other Western nations show no sign of backing down on their support of Ukraine in its war, Russia is preparing to absorb portions of eastern Ukraine following referendums. Once that happens, Russia will consider Ukrainian counteroffensives as attacks on Russian territory.
Funds for the US weapons packages for Ukraine are still being pulled from the $40 billion aid package President Biden signed into law back in May, but Congress is preparing to authorize more spending to support the war.
Congress unveiled on Tuesday a new $12.3 billion aid package for Ukraine that will be included in a stopgap funding bill that needs to be passed this week to avoid a government shutdown.
The $12.3 billion includes military and economic support for Ukraine and will bring total US spending on the war since Russia invaded to $65.9 billion, which is the same number as Russia’s entire military budget for 2021.
More Biden / obama BS.
More Neocons!!!
All for one and one for all, with we citizens left in the lurch.
Putting the $12.3 billion in a stopgap bill is obscene.
Hmm. How much is Biden sending to Ukraine without calling it aid to Ukraine?
This looks suspiciously as if the US financed a transfer of weapons via Lithuania.
https://www.thedefensepost.com/2022/09/28/lithuania-m113-armored-vehicles-ukraine/
Security Cooperation, Security Assistance, Humanitarians Assistance, and many others (with their Sub orgs), all fall under the ‘Foreign Aid’ umbrella term.
Nothing suspicious, the equipment and weapons come from wherever is available. If it comes from Lithuania, then Lithuania gets reimbursed.
While I admit that sometimes the US does some shady stuff,
For you, anything that the US does or doesn’t do will always be suspicious but not Russia, they are transparent and always abide by international laws.
That’s because we’re a “democracy” and they are “public servants” who should pay attention to the will of the people. Got it?
Sort of like the CIA transporting cocaine on fishing boats. Cocaine on one side of the hold, fish on the other side, to be offloaded to one of H.W. Bush’s drilling platforms, the transported to Billie Clinton’s great state of Arkansas.
This is a budgetary matter. I’ve already seen this administration tell American servicemen to apply for food stamps. That shifts part of the cost of maintaining the military to someone else and thereby understates how much it’s actually costing.
Is Biden spending more on Ukraine than he says he is or not?
One of the driving forces behind WW1 was the M.I.C .
Looks like they might be in the market for WWIII.
Before Ike coined the phrase. Another driving force was the banks who chose the wrong side, looking at losing money. So, Lusitania was sacrificed, and, viola’, “The Yanks are Coming”. My grandfathers served in that fiasco. Army.
Breaking News:
The Kremlin MoD has already announced that they have destroyed 75% of these undelivered weapons. Lol.
It’s strange that your “up” votes are from people who never post. Or, could they be YOU with different IDs?
What’s strange is your obsession with the idea that anyone who disagrees with you is a bot/sock puppet. Maybe you’re one yourself?
So it was you!!! Don’t keep doing that Thomas. My bait/lure snagged ya. As if you’ve never heard of the practice. Furthermore my comment, referred to someone/it who agreed with the poster, not disagreed with him. Can’t you comprehend?
Logic’s not your strong suit, is it?
Of course it is, and is that what rankles you?
FYI I am not anyone’s sock-puppet. I do post occasionally on antiwar.com but I am not under any obligation to you or anyone else to validate my identity. I regularly upvote Don Julio because he is doing an excellent job fighting the misinformation, propaganda and outright lies peddled by the Kremlin-funded bots that inhabit the comments section of antiwar.com.
Got any evidence for the “everyone who disagrees with me is a Kremlin-funded bot” nonsense?
Believe it or not, there are real people on all sides of all issues.
“I regularly upvote Don Julio because he is doing an excellent job fighting the misinformation, propaganda and outright lies peddled by the Kremlin-funded bots that inhabit the comments section of antiwar.com.”
Yes, like calling everyone who disagrees with him a Putin stooge? Or fighting “misinformation, propaganda” by posting some of his own like Russia threatening to use nukes on Ukraine since the beginning of the invasion? Or his constant annoying habit of comparing war to a sporting event? Pay attention.
That’s not true, I upvote Don quite frequently and I post. Of course, everybody thinks I AM Don….
And frankly, I don’t blame people who agree with him for not posting here. Anyone who isn’t wildly pro-Russia get bashed thoroughly and repeatedly. Or accused of being bots or trolls.
Thanks for the confirmation. You always post and I wasn’t referring to you.
Confirmation of …?
Not nearly as much as Don accuses others of being Kremlin bots.
right then. remember when victoria nuland testified before the senate that uncle sam was operating bioweapon labs in the ukraine – what happened to those, did russia shut them down?
and not even 2 weeks ago the ukraine army was literally shooting artillery at their own nuclear power plant – did they magically stop doing that or is the reporting of that simply being covered-up?
Six of them. Six!
maybe even 46
https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/after-months-of-denial-u-s-admits-to-running-ukraine-biolabs/
Would not doubt it. Noodles was afraid that those Commies would get into the labs and set free G-d knows what. Never mind what we were doing there with those labs in the first place.
Your tax dollars at work,
Pentagon Proud List…!
The Complex working overtime, and it still is “FOLLOW THE MONEY”.
*except where classic laundering applies.
Same ol – same ol . Weapons shipped out somewhere, MIC gets money to replace em, part of that money goes mic lobbyists who pass it along into dem and gop coffers and propaganda. Elections, rinse and repeat.
The Ukraine proxy war of 2022 – another unabashed obscenity brought to the world by the twentieth and twenty first century master-class exemplar.
According to Big Serge at Substack, the US HIMARS stock has been drained and the US will have to build these new ones, which means Ukraine won’t get them for several years – far too little, too late.
Big Serge does very good analyses of the Ukraine war at his Substack. His latest is here:
https://bigserge.substack.com/p/the-war-has-just-begun
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZSfz4N9GMM – nice current interview with Lt Col MacGregor
Reroute all the wasted war money going to the corrupt Ukrainian regime to Florida. They need the cash.