This is the eighteenth “package” of military aid granted by Washington to kyiv since the start of the Russian offensive in Ukraine. Monday August 8, the United States announced the sending of 1 billion dollars of“weapons, ammunition and equipment” to the Ukrainian armed forces, bringing to $9.8 billion the total of American military aid granted since February 24 and the launch of the “special operation” of Russian President Vladimir Putin. For comparison, Ukraine’s total defense budget was $5.9 billion in 2021.
” President [des Etats-Unis Joe] Biden was clear: we will continue to support the people of Ukraine, who are defending their country against Russian aggression, for as long as it takes.”justified the American Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a press release published Monday, assuring that “more than 50 countries” today supply military equipment to Ukraine. “Every dollar of such aid is one step closer to defeating the aggressor,” thanked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a message broadcast on Monday on Twitter.
According to a list published by the Pentagon, this new envelope mainly includes ammunition, which the belligerents make intensive use of. A batch of unspecified volume is intended in particular to supply the sixteen M142 Himars multiple rocket launchers previously supplied by Washington. These systems, capable of targeting targets more than 80 kilometers away with an accuracy of a few meters, wreak havoc among Russian ammunition or fuel depots behind the front. Some 110 sites of the former Red Army were thus destroyed in July, mainly in the Donbass and in the Kherson region, according to a count established from images broadcast on social networks.
In addition to the projectiles assigned to the Himars, the United States announced the shipment of 75,000 new 155 mm shells, which will supplement the previous American deliveries of 486,000 projectiles of the same caliber. These shells are mainly intended for the 126 M777 guns supplied by Washington since the beginning of the conflict and considered essential in the artillery war in which the Russians and Ukrainians have been engaged for months. Twenty 120 mm mortars (accompanied by 20,000 shells) and 1,000 portable Javelin anti-tank missiles (6,500 had been delivered previously) were also promised by Washington.
“Much better aerial coverage”
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