The U.S. on Friday approved a new $725 million weapons package for Ukraine, including additional GMLRS munitions for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) launchers.
The new security aid deal, which includes capabilities to be drawn from existing Pentagon inventories, also covers 23,000 155mm artillery rounds, 500 precision-guided 155mm artillery rounds, 5,000 155 rounds of Remote Anti-Armor Mine systems, 5,000 anti-tank weapons, High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missiles (HARM), over 200 Humvees, small arms and more than 2 million rounds of associated ammunition.
“In the wake of Russia’s brutal missile attacks on civilians across Ukraine, the mounting evidence of atrocities by Russia’s forces, and the firm and unequivocal rejection by 143 nations at the United Nations of Russia’s illegal attempted annexation of parts of Ukraine, the United States is offering additional military assistance to help Ukraine’s proud defenders protect their country,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
The new weapons package, which is the 23rd presidential drawdown package, follows the latest meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contract group in Brussels last week.
The Pentagon cited several new support deals for Ukraine announced at the meeting of defense ministers from nearly 50 countries, to include Spain providing four HAWK launchers and Norway, Germany and Denmark planning to invest in Slovakia’s production of howitzer.
Germany has also delivered the first of four IRIS-T air defense systems it has committed to providing to Ukraine and announced it will also deliver additional MARS rocket systems and howitzers, according to the Pentagon.
“This critical donation will help Ukraine better defend its civilians from Russian airstrikes,” the Pentagon said in a statement on Germany’s announcement.
The Biden administration’s new National Security Strategy, released last week, cites the war in Ukraine as highlighting the importance of being able to rapidly produce warfighting capabilities to defend against adversaries and at the same time innovating to meet changing battlefield needs (Defense Daily, Oct. 12).