WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration said Monday it is shipping its largest-ever direct arms shipment to Ukraine as that country prepares for a potentially crucial counter-offensive in the South against Russia and has shipped $1 Billion US dollars to Ukraine sends stocks of the Ministry of Defense.
The new US arms shipment would further bolster Ukraine as it launches the counteroffensive that analysts say could allow Kyiv to command the course of the rest of the war for the first time, now halfway through.
Kyiv wants to push back Russian troops from Kherson and other southern areas near the Dnipro River. Russia has been moving troops and equipment towards southern port cities in recent days to repel the Ukrainian counter-offensive.
“At every stage of this conflict, we have focused on giving the Ukrainians what they need, depending on evolving battlefield conditions,” said Colin Kahl, Secretary of State for Defense Policy, on Monday while announcing the new arms shipment.
The new US aid includes additional missiles for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, as well as thousands of artillery shells, mortar systems, spears and other munitions and equipment. Military commanders and other US officials say the HIMARS and artillery systems have been crucial in Ukraine’s fight to prevent Russia from gaining more ground.
While the US has already delivered 16 HIMARS to Ukraine, Kahl said the new package does not include any additional ones.
“These aren’t systems that we think you need hundreds of to get the kind of effects that are required,” Kahl said. “These are precision-guided systems for very specific types of targets, and Ukrainians use them as such.”
He declined to say how many of the precision-guided missile systems for the HIMARS were included in Monday’s announcement, but said the US had provided “several hundreds” of them in recent weeks.
The latest announcement brings total US security aid pledged to Ukraine by the Biden administration to more than $9 billion.
In his late night video address, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked the United States for the package and said, “We will use it 100% to protect freedom, our common freedom.”
To date, the largest single security aid package, announced on June 15, was worth $1 billion. But that aid included $350 million in presidential withdrawal powers and another $650 million under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which provides funds for training, equipment and other security needs that can be bought by other countries or companies.
Monday’s package allows the US to deliver weapons systems and other equipment faster as it takes them off DoD shelves.
In addition to the missiles for the HIMARS, it includes 75,000 rounds of 155mm artillery, 20 mortar systems and 20,000 rounds for them, 1,000 shoulder-mounted Javelin missiles and other weapons, explosives and medical equipment.
In the last four months of the war, Russia has focused on seizing the Donbass region in eastern Ukraine, where pro-Moscow separatists have controlled some areas as self-proclaimed republics for eight years. Russian forces have been making gradual advances in the region while launching missile strikes to limit the movement of Ukrainian fighters elsewhere.
Kahl estimated that Russian forces suffered up to 80,000 killed and injured in the fighting, although he did not break down the figure with an estimate of forces killed.
He said Russian troops had managed to gain “additional” ground in eastern Ukraine, albeit not in recent weeks. “But this comes at an extraordinary cost to the Russian military because of the good performance of the Ukrainian military and all the support that the Ukrainian military has received. And I think now conditions in the east have basically stabilized and the focus is really shifting south.”
The new funding is funded by $40 billion in economic and security aid to Ukraine approved by Congress in May.
This is the 18th time the Pentagon has shipped Defense Department-held equipment to Ukraine since August 2021.
The US and its allies are still evaluating whether to supply planes to Ukraine, Kahl said. It’s “not inconceivable that Western aircraft could later be part of the mix,” he said.
Zelenskyy called for fighter jets almost every day early in the war, calling them essential to protecting the Ukrainian skies. The US and some other NATO countries, concerned that this would embroil them more directly in Ukraine’s war against Russia, have not provided Western aircraft.
Separately, the Treasury Department said on Monday that it would send an additional $3 billion in direct economic aid to Ukraine. That’s part of a previously approved $7.5 billion in economic aid, of which $1.5 billion has yet to be disbursed.
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Associated Press writers Eric Tucker and Fatima Hussein in Washington contributed to this report.