U.S. President Biden has just announced that the United States will provide Ukraine with another round of aid packages to assist its military in the ongoing fight against the Russian Federation, which invaded on February 24th, 2022. 650M USD will come from the Ukraine assistance fund and 350M USD will come from drawdown authority
The aid package will include two truck mounted Harpoon Block 1 missile launchers, reportedly supplied from Denmark, 18x M777 Howitzers, 36,000 artillery rounds for those howitzers, HIMARS ammunition and small arms ammunition. This is now the 11th security package supplied through the drawdown authority bringing the total amount of U.S. DoD assets given to Ukraine to nearly 6B USD. These Harpoon anti-ship missiles will be deployed on the coast of the Black Sea in order to reinforce the already delivered Harpoon batteries that have given Ukraine extensive bargaining power in opening a humanitarian corridor for grain exports. The M777s will be sent to major battlefields in the East in order to level the increasingly Russian dominated fires environment where Russian MLRS, tac-air, and BTG organic indirect fire assets are leveling Ukrainian defensive positions. The battle for Severodonetsk and Lysychansk and their surrounding villages represents the Ukrainian Armed Forces final stand in the Luhansk Oblast, which is almost completely controlled by the Russian Federation.
According to the U.S. State Department: “The use of the Presidential Drawdown Authority to direct a drawdown to provide military assistance under section 506(a)(1) of the Foreign Assistance Act (FAA) is a valuable tool of U.S. foreign policy in crisis situations. It allows for the speedy delivery of defense articles and services from Department of Defense stocks to foreign countries and international organizations to respond to unforeseen emergencies. Such assistance can begin arriving within days—or even hours—of approval.” Below is the official statement from President Biden:
