Login
iscover
Ukraine will receive US$250 million of AIM-9M Sidewinder anti-air missiles, artillery shells, munitions, and vehicles as part of the latest equipment package from the US Department of Defence through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative.
To continue reading the rest of this article, please log in.
Create free account to get unlimited news articles and more!
The current-US government’s 45th tranche of equipment provided from US DOD inventories for Ukraine since August 2021 includes additional air defence and artillery munitions, mine clearing equipment, medical vehicles, and other equipment.
The consignment includes High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) ammunition, 155mm and 105mm artillery rounds, mine clearing equipment, Javelin and other anti-armour systems, TOW missiles and rockets including Hydra-70 variants.
The latest round also includes more than 3 million rounds of small arms ammunition, armoured medical treatment vehicles, high mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicle, ambulances, obstacle clearing demolitions, spare parts, maintenance and field equipment.
“Every item that is decided and taken from the US stock and provided to the Ukrainians, the chairman (of the Joint Chiefs) and secretary (of defense) go through it, and they look exactly at what is the effect for readiness. If they think it’s any impact, negative on readiness, or increases risk … we won’t do it,” said US Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment William A LaPlante.
“So, by definition, if it’s taken out of drawdown, the assessment’s been made (that) we can do it and we can manage the risk.”
The current US administration has committed more than $43 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of Russia’s invasion in February 2022, including more than 2,000 Stinger anti-aircraft systems, more than 10,000 Javelin anti-armour systems and more than 2 million 155-mm artillery rounds.
Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy has also recently announced the country is moving to shore up domestic arms production.
“There was a separate meeting on our Ukrainian arms production (between) the Ministry of Strategic Industries, Ukroboronprom, and heads of domestic production facilities,” he said.
“Artillery made in Ukraine; shells made in Ukraine; drones, missiles, armoured vehicles. We are maximising production capacity; Ukraine can do it, funding is available (and) our defence industry will yield better results.
“We have two tasks for the next meeting of the staff. The first is a report on preparations for the winter, various aspects including security.
“Second, a program of preparation for the use of new combat aircraft.
“Politically, everything has already been done; agreements have been reached. The key thing now is to prepare the infrastructure efficiently and quickly; this is already a military task.”
