US announces more weapons for Ukraine — RT World News
Washington will withdraw artillery shells and rockets from its own stocks to reinforce the kyiv army
The US Department of Defense announced on Monday that it would send an additional $350 million in military aid to Ukraine. The additional supplies come as Ukraine reportedly prepares for a spring offensive, despite heavy losses in the Donbass.
The package is the 34th tranche of military assistance distributed to Ukraine by the United States since August 2021. It includes ammunition for HIMARS rocket artillery systems supplied by the United States to Kyiv, shells from 155mm artillery, high velocity anti-radiation missiles (HARM), river patrol boats and other anti-tank and mortar systems.
Amid reports of dwindling inventories at home, the Pentagon is no longer disclosing how much of each type of ammunition its weapons packages contain. Those numbers have been omitted from all of these statements since early January, but a comparison of supplemental fact sheets released with each package suggests that the United States has sent Ukraine at least 500,000 155mm shells since early March.
These NATO-standard shells are in desperate demand, with Ukrainian Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov saying earlier this month that his forces needed 594,000 a month to fire their Western-supplied guns at full capacity. . Besides those supplied by the United States, Reznikov asked the EU to supply 250,000 shells per month.
At a meeting on Monday, however, 18 EU countries pledged to supply just one million of these shells within a year, a figure well below Kiev’s demands.
The media has warned for months that Ukraine’s arms effort has depleted military inventories in the United States and Europe. While Kyiv reportedly ignored Western advice and refused to surrender the encircled city of Artyomovsk (called Bakhmut in Ukraine), US and European officials now fear its forces are running out of ammunition for a spring offensive against Russia, the New York Times last week. .
The US has given Ukraine more than $32.5 billion in military aid since last February, out of more than $110 billion allocated by US President Joe Biden’s administration for military and economic assistance in Kyiv. Russia has repeatedly warned that such military spending will not change the outcome of the conflict, but will make Western countries de facto participants in hostilities.
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