New US military aid package to Ukraine expected to be worth about $1 billion

CNN
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The Biden administration is preparing a new aid package for Ukraine expected to be worth about $1 billion, multiple sources told CNN.

The Senate passed the bill Tuesday night and sent it to the White House for Biden’s signature as early as Wednesday.

Administration officials have told Congress in recent weeks that the U.S. is likely to send long-range ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile Systems) to Ukraine for the first time as part of a new aid package, three people familiar with the matter said. he suggested.

Last fall, the United States first sent the intermediate-range version of the ATACMS missile system to Ukraine. This missile system has a range of approximately 100 miles, with the long-range version reaching 190 miles.

Ukrainian officials have publicly and privately urged the United States to target long-range missiles farther behind Russian lines. American officials are resisting, using the excuse of supplying supplies and further provoking Russia.

But U.S. officials have described conditions on the battlefield in Ukraine in increasingly dire terms in recent months, as U.S. aid has stalled due to a deadlock in Congress over the administration’s request for $60 billion in additional funding. .

CIA Director Bill Burns testified earlier this month that without U.S. help, Ukraine could lose the war by the end of this year, and U.S. commander in chief in Europe, Gen. Chris Cavoli, told Congress that Russia has He said that it is very advantageous. Ammunition that they would soon outnumber the Ukrainian army 10 to 1. North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) officials said earlier this month that Russia maintains a “significant quantitative advantage” over Ukraine in terms of munitions, personnel and equipment.

Sen. Mark Warner, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation that he expects ATACMS missiles to be sent to Ukraine by the end of next week.

“It should have happened six months ago. The next best time is now. This week we have seen the Ukrainian military over-performing, but I want to pause for a moment and say “If you think about the fact that most of America’s defense forces have been concentrated in Russia for a while,” Warner said. “We hope to get this additional equipment as soon as possible and as soon as it gets to the president by Tuesday or Wednesday, these shipments will literally begin on that long-range ATACMS.”

The package will also include more desperately needed munitions for Ukraine, such as air defense shells and artillery shells, Bradley fighting vehicles and destructive weapons, the officials said.

The text of the bill, passed by both the House and Senate, calls on the administration to transfer the much-needed long-range ATACMS “as soon as practicable,” unless the president determines it would compromise U.S. national security interests. I’m looking forward to it.

The military aid will be sourced from the United States’ own reserves through a financing mechanism known as Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA), and is Ukraine’s first PDA package since March. But that package would be significantly larger than the only about $300 million worth of packages the Pentagon was able to scrape together from other cost cuts within the department.

A White House official declined to comment on the contents of the PDA, but said the United States is “ready to quickly send military aid to Ukraine to meet its urgent battlefield and air defense needs once the supplement passes the Senate and is signed.” “There is,” he said. Law. ”

U.S. European Command is working to process the weapons so they can flow into Ukraine as efficiently as possible, officials told CNN.

Celeste Wallander, the assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, told lawmakers earlier this month that the Pentagon could begin transferring aid “within a week or two” after the bill passes.

This story has been updated with additional information.