Ukraine is receiving new military aid packages from international backers as its counter-offensive against Russian forces in the east and south of the country progresses.
The Biden administration is set to announce a new tranche of military aid, worth up to $400 million, on Associated Press reported on Monday.
This comes less than a week after the Pentagon revealed its latest aid delivery. This earlier aid package, totaling $1.3 billion, provided Ukraine with missile systems, ammunition supplies, drones and electronic warfare equipment, as well as fuel trucks and tactical vehicles.
The new package, which has yet to be formally announced, will include an additional 32 Stryker armored vehicles, the outlet reported. The United States has already sent 157 Stryker armored personnel carriers to Ukraine.
Serhii Mykhalchuk/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images
Ukraine will receive missiles for HIMARS, or High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, and National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAM). The United States will also beef up Ukraine’s supplies of Stinger anti-aircraft systems and Javelin anti-armor weapons. Until now, the US has confirmed delivery of more than 2,000 Stingers and 10,000 Javelin systems to Ukraine.
US officials told the AP that Washington would send more supplies of howitzers, mortars, Hydra-70 unguided rockets and 28 million small arms ammunition.
The package is also expected to include an unspecified number of Hornet drones, which are used for reconnaissance and intelligence gathering.
Countries like Norway have previously promised the Black Hornet drone. Olso said during the NATO summit in Vilnius earlier this month that he would send another 1,000 of the small reconnaissance drones to the Ukrainian military, with the Norwegian Defense Ministry describing them as “easy to operate, robust depending on conditions, difficult to detect and particularly suitable for combat in urban areas.”
On Friday, Reuters reported that the US could announce a new $400 million military aid package in the region as soon as Tuesday, citing three US officials. news week has reached out to the Pentagon for comment by email.
This comes as Spain pledged to bolster military supplies from Ukraine, and Madrid confirmed that four Leopard 2A4 main battle tanks had left the northern city of Santander. The tanks, along with other military supplies and humanitarian aid, will be delivered to Ukraine in early August, the Spanish Defense Ministry said in a statement on Monday.
Spain has already sent six Leopard 2A4 tanks to Ukraine, the government added. The pack comes with several types of armored vehicles, to be divided between the Ukrainian army and the country’s border guard, as well as an armored ambulance and three civilians.
The aid will fuel Ukraine’s ability to keep its ongoing counter-offensive, which will soon reach the two-month mark. Kiev’s fighters carried out operations along “at least three sectors” of the front line on Monday, the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War think tank said in its latest update.
In an operational update on Tuesday, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said its defense troops were conducting offensive operations around the disputed Donetsk town of Bakhmut, the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol in the southern Zaporizhzhia region and the port city of Berdiansk. Russian forces are putting up “strong resistance” and redeploying troops and reserves, the General Staff said.
On Monday, Russia said it had repelled Ukrainian attacks in various parts of Donetsk, and had also attacked Ukrainian targets in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied that the counter-offensive, which Russia says began on June 4, brought any fruit to the Kiev fighters. In a speech to Russia’s Security Council on Friday, Putin said there were “no results, at least not yet” to show Ukraine’s efforts.
but talking to CNN On Sunday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Ukraine had already recaptured about half of the territory Russia had initially occupied.
“Unlike the Russians, the Ukrainians are fighting for their land, for their future, for their country, for their freedom,” Blinken said.
“I think that is the decisive element and that is going to develop,” he continued. But it won’t unfold for the next week or two; We’re still looking for, I think, several months.”