President Biden on Thursday announced a massive military aid package for Ukraine worth $7.9 billion ahead of his meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House.
“Today, I am announcing a surge in security assistance for Ukraine and a series of additional actions to help Ukraine win this war,” Biden said in a statement announcing the aid.
He is authorizing the use of $5.5 billion in Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA), which allows the US to send weapons straight from military stockpiles. If the PDA funds hadn’t been used, they would have expired on September 30, the end of the 2024 fiscal year.
Biden said he wanted to “ensure this authority does not expire, so that my Administration can fully utilize the funding appropriated by Congress to support the drawdown of US equipment for Ukraine and then replenish US stockpiles.”
Biden also announced $2.4 billion in military aid using the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), which allows the Pentagon to purchase weapons for Ukraine. The Pentagon said in a press release that the USAI package will include air defenses, air-to-ground munitions, drones, counter-drone systems, and other equipment.
A day earlier, the Pentagon announced a separate PDA package worth $375 million, making the total military aid pledged to Ukraine this week at $8.275 billion. Biden said that Ukraine would be receiving Joint Standoff Weapons (JSOW), glide bombs with a range of about 70 miles that can be fired by Ukraine’s small fleet of F-16s. US officials said the JSOW will be packed with cluster bombs, which are banned by over 100 countries due to their indiscriminate nature and history of killing and maiming civilians.
Biden said Ukraine will also receive more Patriot missile defense systems and that the US would expand the training of Ukrainian soldiers on F-16 fighter jets. “Through these actions, my message is clear: The United States will provide Ukraine with the support it needs to win this war,” the president said.
Zelensky is set to present Biden with his so-called “victory plan,” but US officials told The Wall Street Journal that the administration doesn’t think he has a clear strategy. According to media reports, the plan is essentially a framework for more military aid.
Zelensky is also pushing hard for the US to support long-range strikes with NATO weapons inside Russian territory. Moscow has warned that the step would mean NATO is at war with Russia, and President Vladimir Putin has ordered changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine as a warning to the West.
Glide bombs with a 70 mile range? That brings them well within the range of Russian SS-400 SAMs, if they're going to attack troops at the front. Of course the reason why they're cluster bombs is because we're out of pretty much everything else, the Pentagram is scratching their heads trying to figure out where they're going to dig up more weapons to give them.
But they are provoking more wars with Iran and China or not?
I think the Joint Chiefs will put a hard stop to that foolishness before it gets too far, they remember the fiascos of Iraq and Afghanistan. When this generation of generals retires though all bets are off.
I wish I could be as optimistic as you are. I don’t think they had any influence or we would not have to deal with the disaster we are in.
I’ve been reading that the gossip in DC is that Blinken and the other neocon lunatics wanted to give permission to fire long range US missiles into Russia, and in fact he had given both Britain and Ukraine assurances that it would be approved. Putin pointed out that those missiles require specific codes which would put the donating NATO countries in danger of losing control of their missiles so they’re all manned by sheep-dipped NATO personnel, which would mean Russia and NATO would be in direct conflict. The Pentagon and the Kremlin appear to be communicating, and the Joint Chiefs convinced Biden not to give the permission. The neocons are reportedly furious.
Rump was listening to Walrus Bolton, and wanted to invade Venezuela after one of his (hilariously bad) coup attempts failed. Again, the Joint Chiefs refused, that invasion would have made Vietnam look like a walk in the park in comparison and stir up enough resentment among the immigrant population that no one in Arlington would ever be able to trust their maid or landscaper again.
Maybe the Joint Chiefs finally woke up, I hope and you are right.
Seems the last two generations of our generals do not even know how to wage a war much less win it.
But they certainly know how to dole out the dollars.
We won in Granada, though!
This new video explains that most Americans do not understand the current war in Ukraine because they’ve been misinformed. The great Glen Greenwald provides a summary of this propaganda effort. Retired US Army intelligence officer Tony Shaffer states that some 15,000 Americans are in Ukraine to support the war and many have been killed. There are comments by the prime ministers of Hungary and Slovakia who don't support the Anglo-American war in Ukraine. Finally, the myth that Vladimir Putin is a dictator is addressed.
It's easier to get on – and stay on through November – a Russian ballot to run for president than it is to do the same in Oklahoma, Pennsylvania or numerous other US states. Russia has had during Putin's tenure 5 or 6 parties represented in the Duma plus independents. Again compare with the US. One of the things that enrages DC is that Putin is genuinely comparatively popular with Russians who vote, winning 60-65% of the vote in elections with 5-10 candidates. The distant second place is frequently the more popular of the communist leftovers and DC can't back them either.
This leaves a divided 20-25% of the electorate who don't much support each other and can't be corralled into a color revolution. A small % of those people are the frothing at the mouth expansionist nationalists they make Putin out to be, and DC also can't back them. Maybe 5-10% of the population will vote for national candidates who want to get with the US/NATO program and fill their pockets selling the country out.
Faced with a decently strong country that can't be flimflammed and manipulated along the usual lines, DC's answer is the usual hammer for the nail: "Bomb it."
Additionally, the Russian Federation encompasses an unthinkably huge territory with diverse cultures from Completely Asian to Completely European and everything in between.
If the polling is representative of all these people (may just be citizens of Moscow & large West cities in the RF) then Putin achieving that high an approval rating across such a broad swath of societies is remarkable.
61% of Germans don't want any new NATO escalation either. The populations of all these countries involved are hostage to their sociopathic leaders.
The Ukrainian Civil War has been going on now almost 11 years. Might be time to stop funding more war.
You're not supposed to mention 11 years, you're supposed to say that Russia woke up one day and invaded Ukraine for no reason.
Somewhere I've saved the URL for a BBC story from several years ago that deserting and/or retreating Ukrainian (Kiev-oriented Ukrainian-speaking Catholic) troops deliberately entered Russia to escape fighting ethnic Russians in Donbass. They were carrying their weapons. In other words armed Ukrainians entered Russia proper first, in addition to an estimated million refugees, and only years later did Russia enter Ukraine in an attempt to among other things impose order on their border. The US would do the same or a whole lot more one imagines, as would any country capable.
Roughly 1/2 of refugees from the Ukrainian Civil War have fled to live in Russia proper
That requires normal people with a normal brain. We don't have any. The leading elite, politicians, journalists in MSM, economic leadership, pundits and artists are bat-sh*t-crazy. There is no other explanation, they are fairly normal on the outside but inside they are Jeffery Dahmer.
Hey man – America INVENTED Civil Wars (and MARVEL perfected them).
I mean, apart from the civil wars happening elsewhere right now, and in other places & times going back thousands of years.
Part of what makes this war so incredbly dangerous is the personal involvement and enrichment of the Bidens. The DC Blob needs to keep the war going at last through November for that reason, else literally and figuratively blow it all up. Anyone in Kiev who knows where the bodies are buried in the Blob's view either need to be installed with an iron grip or 'have an accident.'
I'm disappointed my family name couldn't get me a US$50,000 / month job with a Ukrainian energy firm for which I have zero experience.
Not mad. Just… disappointed.
But it's NOT a "surge of assistance" because we don't have the arms to spare. Mostly this is a surge of bureaucracy around the fact that Congress won't sign off on sending any more cash to fuel the failing war. But losing the war and letting Ukraine implode was always fine for Biden if it might weaken Russia or strengthen US alliances and interests.
The idiot and his pet …… take your choice.
I tried to figure the math out from all the news headlines today. I referred to Orwell. As usual, it was a waste of time. The only equation he wrote about was 2 + 2 = 5.
Aren't you tired from writing checks to Netanyahu and Zelensky? Just give them the damned checkbook and let them figure it out.
They have the matches to set the barn on fire.
Give them the check book, and then close that account.
The Biden-Harris administration: here they go again giving billions of taxpayers' money to Volodymyr Zelensky for the US proxy war against Russia. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
That is what deranged people do, don't forget, they are the inmates of the Washington asylum. Add to that Tel Aviv and Kiev and London and Paris and Berlin. We are in deep trouble with a bunch of idiots in charge of the nuclear matches.
8 billion here – 8 billion there! No concern for the national debt whatsoever, or spending the tax money on projects in the US.
You make the mistake Putin made, he thought he was dealing with normal people in DC and Kiev.
A crazy clown meats with a crazy president, how sad and disgusting at the same time.
Biden said that Ukraine would be receiving Joint Standoff Weapons (JSOW), glide bombs with a range of about 70 miles that can be fired by Ukraine’s small fleet of F-16s. US officials said the JSOW will be packed with cluster bombs, which are banned by over 100 countries due to their indiscriminate nature and history of killing and maiming civilians.
There will be nary a peep about those cluster bombs. They already popped that cherry earlier on in the war. Now they can say it with ease. The normal 10 minutes of the typical American's attention span has long passed.
This is what Leadership looks like. President Trump is visited by Zelenskyy at Trump Towers: https://x.com/charliekirk11/status/1839689847583433010?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet
Mr Biden, please explain how sending our tax dollars and military stock to a country 3000 miles away from our shores makes us safer?
We live in crazy times. I think of the Anderson fairy tale, The Emperor's new clothes, and the neighbors and all the people who knew Jeffrey Dahmer and never knew how sick he was.
We have a certified war criminal like Victoria Nuland teaching in the prestigious Columbia university while people like Norm Finkelstein would be banned and students supporting the human rights of the Palestinians beaten up by "law enforcement" police. The Kagan clan is still roaming the halls in the State Department.
And there is the madman Netanyahu with a crazy speech, dripping full of lies and the deranged members of congress applauding him with standing ovations for every word his lying mouth can say. Some time later he even tells the people about all the rockets and missiles Hezbollah is hiding in Lebanese homes. That is how crazy the man and the nation of Israel is.
When I look at the picture, all I see is a couple of pudknockers.
So fitting. I had to look it up first.
It turns out that most of the "$8 billion" is money to pay for weapons that won't be manufactured or delivered until several years in the future. Sounds like the Pentagon has written off Ukraine as a bad investment and doesn't want to give them any more free toys. Maybe they'll ship them a few more of the thousands of useless Bradleys they have parked in the desert and a few thirty year old F-16s that were scheduled to be scrapped if they're feeling generous.
We are arming the most vile, murderous dirtbags on the planet. I wash my hands of this so-called empire.
We deserve annihilation. This gem of a planet deserves to be rid of the human plague.
That's about all I have left to say.
I hate Ukraine and America.
I hope they are vaporized soon.
Only way to get world peace.