WASHINGTON — The Pentagon will announce it’s sending as much as $500 million in navy help to Ukraine, together with greater than 50 closely armored autos and an infusion of missiles for air protection programs, U.S. officers mentioned Monday, as Ukrainian and Western leaders attempt to type out the affect of the temporary weekend rebellion in Russia.
The help is geared toward bolstering Ukraine’s counteroffensive, which has been transferring slowly in its early phases. It wasn’t clear Monday if Ukrainian forces will be capable of benefit from the disarray within the Russian ranks, within the aftermath of the short-lived riot by Yevgeny Prigozhin and the Wagner mercenary group that he has managed.
An announcement on the help package deal is predicted Tuesday. This can be the forty first time for the reason that Russian invasion into Ukraine in February 2022 that the U.S. has offered navy weapons and gear by way of presidential drawdown authority. The program permits the Pentagon to shortly take objects from its personal shares and ship them to Ukraine.
Because the help packages are typically deliberate upfront and not too long ago included lots of the identical crucial weapons for the battlefront, the contents weren’t probably chosen based mostly on the weekend riot.
But, the missiles and heavy autos can be utilized as Ukraine tries to capitalize on what has been a rising feud between the Wagner Group chief and Russia’s navy brass, with simmering questions on what number of of Prigozhin’s forces might go away the combat.
The mercenaries left Ukraine to grab a navy headquarters in a southern Russian metropolis and moved a whole bunch of miles towards Moscow earlier than turning round after lower than 24 hours on Saturday.
According to the officers, the U.S. will ship 30 Bradley Fighting Vehicles and 25 of the armored Stryker autos to Ukraine, together with missiles for the High-Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) and the Patriot air protection programs. The package deal will embody Javelin and high-speed anti-radiation (HARM) missiles, demolition munitions, obstacle-clearing gear and a variety of artillery rounds and different ammunition.
The officers spoke on situation of anonymity as a result of the help has not but been publicly introduced.
According to the Pentagon, the U.S. has delivered greater than $15 billion in weapons and gear from its shares to Ukraine for the reason that Russian invasion, and has dedicated an extra $6.2 billion in provides that haven’t but been recognized. The greater than $6 billion further is the results of an accounting error, as a result of the navy providers overestimated the worth of the weapons they pulled off the cabinets and despatched to Ukraine over the previous 12 months.
More broadly, the U.S. has additionally promised to ship greater than $16.7 billion in longer-term funding for numerous weapons, coaching and different gear by way of the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, and an extra roughly $2 billion in overseas navy financing.
The U.S. has no less than $1.2 billion in drawdown authority that hasn’t but been dedicated however will expire on the finish of this fiscal 12 months on Sept. 30. The remaining $1.9 billion in USAI funds doesn’t expire till the top of the subsequent fiscal 12 months, in September 2024.
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Associated Press author Aamer Madhani contributed to this report.
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