The U.S. has approved a new $200 million weapons package for Ukraine, which is the first funded from the additional $6.2 billion the Pentagon discovered after it overestimated the value of earlier aid provided to Kyiv.
“[The new aid] includes additional air defense munitions, artillery and tank ammunition, anti-armor weapons, and other equipment to help Ukraine counter Russia’s ongoing war of aggression,” the Pentagon said in a statement. This security assistance package will utilize assistance previously authorized under Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA) for Ukraine that remained after the PDA revaluation process concluded in June.”
The Pentagon confirmed in June it overvalued the weapons provided through PDA packages by $2.6 billion for fiscal year 2022 and $3.6 billion for FY ‘23, with the department attributing the accounting error to using “replacement costs rather than net book value” (Defense Daily, June 21).
“It’s another pot of money that we have access to, so when we have our next presidential drawdown package to roll out, it’s not like we’re going to have allocated, here, this is $6 billion that we have found through our reevaluation. It’s just going to go back into the pot of money that we have allocated for the PDAs, and we will roll out the next package when we have that announcement,” Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said at the time.
Monday’s new $200 million weapons aid deal for Ukraine, which is the 44th PDA package of weapons to be provided from existing Pentagon inventories, includes more munitions for RTX’s [RTX] Patriot air defense systems and Lockheed Martin’s [LMT] HIMARS launchers.
Ukraine will also receive more TOW missiles, Javelin anti-tank missiles, 120mm tank ammunition and 155mm and 105mm artillery rounds.
Doug Bush, the Army’s acquisition chief, told reporters last week the service is aiming to produce more than 80,000 155mm artillery rounds per month by FY ‘25 as it works to replenish its own stockpiles and continue supporting Ukraine (Defense Daily, Aug. 7).
The new $200 million package also includes mine clearing equipment, 37 tactical vehicles to tow and haul equipment, 58 water trailers and over 12 million rounds of smalls arms ammunition and grenades, according to the Pentagon.
The Biden administration last week sent Congress a new supplemental spending request, which calls for $5 billion in further Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI) funding, which used to award contracts to industry to meet Ukraine weapons needs, and another $4.5 billion to replace DoD weapons stocks and reimburse the department for services, education and training provided to Ukraine (Defense Daily, Aug. 10).
Singh reiterated in June that the $6.2 billion is associated with weapons pulled from existing Pentagon inventories for PDA packages and not capabilities procured from industry with USAI funds.
“These valuation errors in no way limit or restricted the size of any of our PDAs or impacted the provision of support to Ukraine, and while the DoD retains the authority to utilize the recaptured PDA, this has no bearing on appropriated USAI or Ukraine PDA replenishment funding approved by Congress,” Singh previously told reporters.