The US on Thursday announced a new massive $2.5 billion arms package for Ukraine that includes Stryker armored combat vehicles for the first time.
The tranche of weapons includes 90 Strykers and 55 Bradley Fighting Vehicles, which the US first pledged to send to Ukraine as part of an over $3 billion arms package that was announced earlier this month.
The package also includes munitions for the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS), Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles (MRAPs), and other equipment.
The Strykers are made by General Dynamics and are designed to transport troops with extra protection, similar to the Bradleys. The Stryker is lighter and faster than the Bradleys and is on wheels as opposed to tracks.
Both vehicles can be used to go on the offense, and that’s what US officials have in mind for the new transfer. Germany and France have also pledged to send similar armored vehicles.
The UK said it would send 14 of its main battle tanks, the Challenger 2, but it’s not clear if Kyiv will get more Western-made heavy tanks. Berlin is hesitant to sign off on deliveries of its Leopard 2, and US officials signaled this week that they wouldn’t be sending the M1 Abrams.
While Ukraine is receiving a significant amount of new armor, Valery Zaluchny, the commander of the Ukrainian armed forces, said in December that he needs at least 300 heavy tanks and 600-700 fighting vehicles if he is to stand a chance to drive Russia out of the territory it’s captured.
According to the Pentagon, the full $2.5 billion arms package includes the following:
- Additional munitions for NASAMS
- Eight Avenger air defense systems
- 59 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles (IFVs) with 590 TOW anti-tank missiles and 295,000 rounds of 25mm ammunition
- 90 Stryker Armored Personnel Carriers (APCs) with 20 mine rollers
- 53 MRAPS
- 350 High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWVs)
- 20,000 155mm artillery rounds
- Approximately 600 precision-guided 155mm artillery rounds
- 95,000 105mm artillery rounds
- Approximately 11,800 120mm mortar rounds
- Additional ammunition for HIMARS
- 12 ammunition support vehicles
- 6 command post vehicles
- 22 tactical vehicles to tow weapons
- High-speed Anti-radiation missiles (HARMs)
- Approximately 2,000 anti-armor rockets
- Over 3,000,000 rounds of small arms ammunition
- Demolition equipment for obstacle clearing
- Claymore anti-personnel munitions
- Night vision devices
- Spare parts and other field equipment
US military aid for Ukraine is being pulled from funds that have already been authorized by Congress and signed into law by President Biden, which at this point amounts to about $113 billion.
Several other NATO members pledged more military aid for Ukraine on Thursday as their defense ministers met in Brussels. The UK announced it would send 600 Brimstone missiles, and Poland said it would provide S-60 anti-aircraft guns with 70,000 rounds of ammunition.
Biden’s WAR Bank just keeps getting bigger….
Biden/Amerika can seemingly pour as much money on this fire as he/it wants because there is, in the real world of Amerika, absolutely no push back on this revenue-extraction/siphoning upwards of literally every working persons life/value. In France, a million folks are in the streets over pension cutbacks. In Amerika? Crickets from the cowed and paralyzed host of a parasitic organism.
Another unpaid for forever war…
Once the Great Reset happens and the financial deck has been reshuffled, a billion dollars might buy a loaf of bread, that is if you can find a loaf of bread after nuclear winter. So much for the USA, Russia, and most of humanity.
Russia announces it had already destroyed most of it š¤·š½āāļø
Hey, just make it a trillion Fed dollars. They can always print more.
Or mint a one trillion dollar platinum coin. That should cover everything.
Sorry for changing the subject, I wish The British Government minted one with NHS logo on it.
Sadly, the miserable cowards at the top would never dare anything of sorts.
Cha-ching! https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7e996d82bfad20c801b39ba4c2ef3da3d7d37b82c11181947b968a52dbdbeeb1.jpg
After this year ends, China can deploy 10% of its army to invade Hawaii followed by California.
Don’t worry, we’ll have Tom Hanks to protect us.
His hands are shaky, he canāt shoot straight.
We are going to strike Crimea. And more. An all out war with Russia. In modern times, we have never had to defend against a direct attack from without. I can only imagine the panic if and when it happens.
Yeah, look how the country collectively $hit its pants after 9/11.
Isn’t the Federal government already severely “in the red”?
Amerika is ‘in debt’ when it needs to say that, and a ‘creditor’ when it needs to say that. That is the basis of ‘American Exceptionalism’, lol.
As I wrote in another recent news story on Antiwar, “I’m starting to suspect that Putin is deliberately dragging this war out for as long as possible in a deliberate attempt to bleed NATO states.” By transferring this additional $2.5 billion in “aid” to Ukraine (which will never be paid back), Washington DC is falling farther into Putin’s trap. In fact, the DoD website states, “Since 2014, the United States has committed more than $29.5 billion in security assistance“. Geez, just think of all the healthcare that could be paid with that $29.5 billion; how many student debts could be forgiven.
Part of the delay is weather. Expectations that EU would have bad heating issues were resolved by higher than normal temperatures in Europe. These same temperatures kept the front line in Ukraine muddy rather than solidly frozen, making fast advances for either side difficult.
However, I think that Russia is quite fine with this as BRICS can use the time to increase its economic coupling, and its decoupling from the west. With it increasingly likely that the US will gain Brazil, but lose Saudi Arabia, Iran, and UAE to BRICS, there is much to be done.
In the long run, the success of the rival blocks to decouple their economies from the other side will be much more consequential than the results of the kinetic conflict in Ukraine. With luck, the kinetic part of the war will just end in a stalemate, with Ukraine bearing the brunt of the costs. Well almost all if it. The alternative is for other nations to pay higher costs. The results of the economic part of the war remain to be seen.
Like the Spanish civil war of the 1930’s, the Russo-Ukrainian was has become a testing ground for new weapons.
No one wanted this war more than the American neocons, and the Ukrainian neo-Nazis, now let them pay the bills and let them wear the uniform and fight. Zelensky sold Ukraine and the Ukrainian people for lots of money, let him and the Americans neocons fight the war. They collect the profits, let them risk their necks.
More overpriced tinker toys into the fire. Your tax dollars at work.
The US on Thursday Announces Massive $2.5 Billion Weapons Package for Ukraine
that was yesterday.
an over $3 billion arms package that was announced earlier this month.
earlier. WTF is the 2.5 part of or in addition to the earlier 3 billion.
never mind the rising price of eggs and more here in the US.
“WTF is the 2.5 part of or in addition to the earlier 3 billion”
Not exactly either.
Congress has authorized up to $X billion in aid to Ukraine. I forget the number, but it was on Dave DeCamp’s podcast this morning (see the upper right corner of the front page at Antiwar.com). Slightly less, or maybe somewhat more than, $100 billion.
Each of these “announced aid packages” are pieces of that larger number. Congress authorizes the whole thing, the executive branch doles it out as it decides.
aha. then i wonder why somebody keeps announcing every specific allotment of that $X billion as if it is a new thing every day.
The reason for the multiple, overlapping, cumulative, and repetitive “announcements” is propaganda. The MIC wants to portray that “the world” is behind the Kiev Regime, and is providing it with the means to “win,” which it, the Kiev Regime, is already doing. In other words it is not news at all and shouldn’t be reported as such here at antiwar.com.
Merely because:
(1) the Pentagon or White House issues a press release,
(2) a press conference takes place at the Pentagon or WH, and
(3) the MSM treat it as news, even front page, or “breaking”news,
doesn’t mean that it is news. In this, and all similar, cases, it is not.
Note to the SOB in the WH: we could use some more help with flooding out here. How about spending some of our tax dollars on us? Or do we have to be attacked by Mexico to get you to start one of your patented proxy wars….
Oh wait. Never mind.
Bear, Iām assuming you live in California? If so, perhaps you could convince Mexico to annex your state; you all would be better off.
I’d rather we and the rest of the west coast just filed for divorce…
Bear, Iām assuming you live in California? If so, perhaps you could convince Mexico to annex your state; you all would be better off.
They can have my old blunderbus…
Well then, weāll just keep the thousands of homeless encampments.
Weāll just let children go hungry during school hours.
Weāll just allow folks to declare bankruptcy because they cannot pay their medical bills (or die for lack of medical insurance.)
Weāll just let seniors freeze to death because theyāre unable to pay their heating costs (yes, it happens.)
Weāll just let people work three minimum-wage jobs just to put food on their familyās table.
I donāt give two sh*ts if itās all part of a ālarger packageā; there should have been no goddamned package to begin with. Let the Vogue cover model pay his own f*cking way, or NEGOTIATE.
Yep, says it all. Good to know where the priorities of this obscene administration lie…
I happen to live inside of Amerika. There are just so many crying needs on the streets that I see and live upon every day that could REALLY use a bit of that $2.5 BILLION dollars. Yet, without a ripple of debate, it flows into the cauldron of war. Simply irrational.
In Moscow they can afford to fiddle while Europs Burns. The coming Winter offensive was always a western construct, not Russian. While the Nazi’s keep throwing themselves headlong into the Donbass meatgrinder there really is no need for a Russian offensive at all.
Moscow has called NATO’s bluff and are prepared for a very long war, a war of attrition, a war Russia is wining. The Russian strategy is very simple: Russia will kill NATO soldiers and hardware faster than NATO can provide reinforcements and this will continue until NATO surrenders.
The rabid #CancelRussia mass phenomenon and the proposals about sending NATO weapons are simply an expression of the racist impotent rage felt by the western leaders.
Military men hate wars; they are the work of corrupt fascist politicians. When corporations buy politicians and control all levers of power its called fascism. These fascist governments go to war to enrich their corporate owners.
On top of the leaks we are getting about the actual assessment of what is going on, even according to US intelligence, we also have German intelligence:
Federal Intelligence Service warns of high losses of the Ukrainian army
1.46 pm: The Federal Intelligence Service (BND) is alarmed by high losses of the Ukrainian army in the battle for the strategically important city of Bakhmut in the east of the country. According to information from SPIEGEL, the foreign intelligence service informed security politicians of the Bundestag in a secret meeting this week that the Ukrainian army is currently losing a three-digit number of soldiers every day in battles with the Russian invaders.
The BND warned that the capture of Bakhmut by the Russians would have significant consequences, as it would allow Russia to make further advances into the interior….
https://www.spiegel.de/ausland/russland-ukraine-news-am-freitag-britische-geheimdienste-bis-zu-50-000-wagner-soeldner-in-der-ukraine-a-be2408e1-6e72-4325-bc06-29d76e0c4d5e
US giving the Ukraine as much arty (and arty ammo, depleting US, Iraeli, etc, stockpiles), as it can, because the Ukraine is completely on the defensive, and is running out of everything that matters.
ttps://bigserge.substack.com/p/russo-ukrainian-war-the-world-blood?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2
Tanks are a distraction.
Amazingly, the MSM continues to flog story after story about how the Russians are losing, are taking too many casualties, don’t know what they are doing, are having their lunch stolen by the clever Ukies on the reg, and about how Putin is about to be overthrown, is demented, is insane, poops his pants, is half dead, or fully dead. A constant fire hose of 24/7 sewage propaganda.
Last one made me laugh.
“US Announces Massive $2.5 Billion Weapons Package for Ukraine The package will include more Bradley armored vehicles and for the first time, Stryker armored vehicles”
Russia will enjoy using these American toys for target practice.
Who loses the war in Ukraine? Because of global warming and climate change, ALL SPECIES lose the war in Ukraine because every cent spent on that abomination should be spent on combating climate change.
All to promote death and destruction in a Country far, far away. from the Ministry of Perpetual Wars, a gift from a Warlord in Chief. A generous gift of the American Taxpayers…. WE are proud to support more DEATH.
LONG LIVE DEATH!!!
The Russian MOD is fighting a very successful war of attrition disarming NATO (Ukraine was disarmed in March), tank by tank, artillery by artillery, air defense by air defense. Poland has called up 200,000 reserves, Ukraine is collapsing and Poland/Romania are now being called up to die for empire. What the empire looses in the Ukraine, they loose for the final NATO war against Russia.
NATO overall has accumulated the following equipment losses;
375 Aircraft, 203 helicopters, 2922 UAV’s, 401 Anti Aircraft systems, 7589 tanks inc. APC’s, 985 multiple rocket launchers, 3883 rocket launchers and 8128 military automotive equipment.
In the past year we have seen the Rules Based Order act in a state of criminal insanity. They blew up the Nord Stream Pipeline which will cause the deindustrialisation of Europe. The shelling the Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Station in an effort to cause a nuclear accident. The planning of a false flag nuclear weapon detonation on their own soil!!! This is the actions of criminally insane psychopaths.
If Russia moves into western Ukraine, then Russia will want as many western Ukrainians as possible to be at least neutral towards Russia. Entering with care packages for all, and slowly but steadily rebuilding what they capture, is imho by far their best plan going forward.
We tried winning through intimidation in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and in Libya. This strategy completely failed. The US has promised to spend millions of dollars on freedom fighters whose job it will be to blow up and destroy as much of Russian controlled territory as possible. With a lot of hard work and turning the other cheek, Russia can cause our plan to backfire.
People intent on harming Russia who will never change will have to be dealt with. People who are paid good salaries to destroy as much as they can will have to be defeated. That is likely to be a very small percentage of the population.
The people of Ukraine have become hostages of the US/NATO ruling Nazi regime………….Ukrainian men are being drafted by force. Murdered if they run. And once on the frontline the NATO anti-retreat forces murder all those who refuse to fight. US/NATO is evil to the core.
I cant help but feel that the western Ukraine people deserve all that has come their way. They brought it all on themselves. Ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Donbass has turned out to be Ethnic cleansing and genocide of western regions. They should of taken the Donbass option and taken up arms against the Nazi regime in Kiev. They were to racist and full of hate for Russia and now they are all dead men walking.
LBJ is proud of Biden in surpassing him in war spending.
More fun and games for the World’s one AND the only https://williamblum.org/books/rogue-state organised Gorefest Jamboree bandera boys in Ukraine.
How very exhilarating, isn’t it ..