Green light from the US for new military aid to Ukraine (but no F-16)
From the US new military aid for 350 million dollars. The latest pack includes ammunition for Himars missile systems and Howitzer cannons. But for fighters, Kiev is getting them only from Poland and Slovakia, nothing to do with American F-16s
New military aid to Ukraine from the USA.
Washington has authorized an additional $350 million in military aid for Ukraine, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday. The new package includes ammunition for Himars missile systems and Howitzer cannons used by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In addition, aid includes ammunition for the turrets mounted on Bradley armored personnel carriers, new Harm air-to-surface missiles and anti-tank weapons.
The announcement of the latest assistance package from Washington was made on the same day that Chinese President Xi Jinping met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow to promote Beijing's role as a potential peacemaker in Ukraine, Reuters reports. Xi was the first leader to meet with Putin since the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant on Friday for the Russian leader for deporting Ukrainian children to Russia.
Also yesterday EU countries approved the 2 billion euro plan to procure ammunition for Ukraine and replenish national stockpiles.
All the details.
WHAT'S IN THE NEW US MILITARY AID PACKAGE
The pack includes new ammunition for the Himars missile systems and the Howitzer cannons used by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In addition, aid includes ammunition for the turrets mounted on Bradley armored personnel carriers, new Harm air-to-surface missiles and anti-tank weapons.
The United States has supplied more than $30 billion in weapons to Ukraine since Russia began its invasion on February 24, 2022.
KIEV'S DEMANDS
Finally, just recently, Ukrainian leader Zelensky has obtained commitments from the West for jets, even if they do not concern the US-made F-16 fighters for which he has been soliciting so much.
Zelensky has long been urging the West to send fighter jets . In what counts as another milestone in the West's willingness to ramp up security assistance to the war-torn nation, Poland and Slovakia , both NATO members, announced last week they would send their own fighters Soviet-era MiG-29 to Ukraine.
Nothing doing for the F-16, a single-seat US fighter, which President Joe Biden has declared that he will not supply to Ukraine for the moment. A bipartisan group of senators, however, recently pushed the Pentagon to send the jets, which the group says "could prove to be a game-changer on the battlefield," according to Politico .
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/via-libera-dagli-usa-per-nuovi-aiuti-militari-allucraina-ma-niente-f-16/ on Tue, 21 Mar 2023 15:34:51 +0000.