JN/Industries
Today at 00:34
The United States will announce a major new military aid package for Ukraine on Friday that will include artillery, ammunition and Stryker armored vehicles, but no M1 Abrams tanks.
According to news portal Politico, which quotes three US officials and another source linked to the trial, the announcement will come on Friday during a meeting of key military leaders from around the world in Germany to discuss aid to Kyiv.
Related
The new military aid package will include artillery, ammunition and additional armored vehicles, likely Stryker armored fighting vehicles, and the US is not expected to authorize the deployment of American M1 Abrams tanks, the portal notes.
Currently, the Joe Bidenled administration has no plans to send the Abrams, the US Army’s main 60ton war tank, the same sources said.
The reluctance was due to the tanks’ logistical and maintenance challenges, not concerns that their shipment could exacerbate the conflict, one of the US officials stressed.
The same source pointed out that the US had helped Ukraine procure Sovietera tanks and supported the British decision to send about a dozen of their Challenger 2 tanks.
The package is expected to include several Stryker, an eightwheeled armored fighting vehicle built by General Dynamics Land Systems, as well as smalldiameter grounddropped bombs with a range of about 100 miles, two of the sources said.
This package will not include the army’s longrange tactical missile system capable of reaching Moscow, according to two sources.
The Biden administration has refused to send longrange munitions, despite pleas from Kyiv, for fear of provoking Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“We believe that the supply of modern tanks will greatly support and improve the Ukrainians’ ability to fight where they are fighting now and to fight more effectively in the future,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on Wednesday in a statement to journalists on European tanks.
Kirby declined to comment on upcoming US aid packages.
The White House has yet to sign off on this package, which is being finalized, but US officials hope to announce it at the Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting Friday at the US Air Force Base in Ramstein, Germany will be Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chief of Staff General Mark Milley.
This meeting comes at a time when the Ukrainian authorities are warning of the possibility of a new major offensive by Moscow to capture the capital, Kyiv.
Under pressure from Kyiv to deliver heavier weapons in recent weeks, Western nations have dramatically increased announcements of new tanks.
The US and the Netherlands announced investments late last year to upgrade around 90 Czechoperated Sovietera T72 tanks. Germany has also pledged its Marder infantry fighting vehicle and France its AMX10 RC.
Canada will also deliver 200 personnel carriers, while the US announced earlier this month that it will send 50 Bradley Fighting Vehicles, an armored vehicle carrying an automatic cannon, machine gun and TOW missiles.
The Russian military offensive on Ukrainian territory, launched on February 24 last year, plunged Europe into the worst security crisis since World War II (19391945).