The first four of seven U.S military aid flights have landed in Ukraine according to an anonymous U.S Defense official who spoke to Reuters on Monday. He continued to say that the United States military expects to start training Ukrainians on using howitzer artillery in the coming days. These aid flights are part of the new $800 million military aid package that was signed by Biden last week. It includes artillery systems, artillery rounds, armored personnel carriers, unmanned coastal defense boats, as well as radar and drones. This comes a day before the Pentagon said on Tuesday that Ukraine’s military had received additional fighter aircraft as well as parts for aircraft repair. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby did not say which countries provided aircraft, but did say Ukraine had more operable fighter aircraft now than two weeks ago. He did add, however, that the U.S was not one of the countries that were providing aircraft or parts.

In regard to the U.S training of Ukrainians, it would reportedly take place outside of Ukraine. U.S instructors would work with and teach Ukrainian trainers how to use some of the new batch of weapons, such as howitzers and radars, so as to have them pass on the training. The U.S has previously trained Ukrainian forces on Switchblade drones, which are actually part of this aid package. The new package includes 11 Mi-17 helicopters that had been set aside for Afghanistan before the U.S.-backed government collapsed last year after being overrun by Taliban forces. It also includes 18 155mm howitzers, along with 40,000 artillery rounds, counter-artillery radars, 200 armored personnel carriers, and 300 additional “Switchblade” drones.

The same official as above also said there were roughly 76 Russian battalion tactical groups in southern and eastern Ukraine, an increase of 65. Over the weekend, the Russian defense ministry said its anti-aircraft systems in the Odessa region shot down a Ukrainian transport plane delivering weapons supplied by Western governments. The official said that the United States did not have any information to suggest that was true. Adding lastly that there were no indications that Russia was making any attempt to recover the flagship of its Black Sea fleet,warship Moskva, that sank on Thursday after being hit by Ukrainian anti-ship Neptune weapons