With the Senate passing a nearly $61 billion aid package to Ukraine, and with President Biden poised to sign it, desperately needed American weapons could arrive on the battlefield within days.
The arms package – which has been postponed since last fall due to political wrangling by Republicans in the House of Representatives – is “a lifeline” for Kiev’s military, said Yehor Cherniev, the deputy chairman of the Ukrainian parliament’s national security committee.
But it will not include everything that President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has asked for in his military struggle to hold on after two years of war against invading Russian forces.
Here’s a look at what Ukraine says it needs, what it’s expected to get in the U.S. aid package and whether it will be enough to make an immediate difference.
What Ukraine wants.
Above all, Mr. Zelensky says Ukraine needs artillery ammunition and long-range missiles to attack Russian forces, along with air defenses to protect cities and key infrastructure such as military bases, power plants and weapons factories.
“We must inflict maximum damage on everything that Russia uses as a base for terror and for its military logistics,” Zelensky said in his late-night address to Ukrainians on Monday.
To do this, he has said, Ukraine needs more long-range tactical missile systems from the military – known as ATACMS and pronounced “attack’ems” – to go behind enemy lines and deep into Russian-occupied territory. can strike. The United States sent a small number of ATACMS, with a range of about 100 miles, to Ukraine last year, and they were used to attack two Russian air bases in October. Ukraine has requested a longer-range version that can strike targets about 300 kilometers away.
Artillery ammunition, such as the 155-millimeter caliber shells that fit on NATO-standard launchers donated by the West, has been in short supply in Ukraine for more than a year, as Russian forces fire ten times as many bullets on the battlefield as Ukraine’s weaker ones. troops, Mr. Zelensky said last week.
Mr Zelensky has also described air defense – and in particular the US surface-to-air anti-ballistic Patriot missile system – as “critical”. And he has been pushing for more than a year for F-16 fighter jets to provide a new layer of air defense over the ground war in Ukraine.
What Ukraine will get.
The Pentagon has drawn up a $1 billion military aid package that a U.S. official said will be sent to Ukraine on Tuesday once Mr. Biden signs the funding bill. The package, initially reported by Reuters, includes shoulder-fired Stinger surface-to-air missiles, 155-millimeter grenades, anti-tank guided missiles and battlefield vehicles.
The US official said the package would also include ammunition for the so-called High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, which can launch ATACMS missiles. The official would not confirm whether ATACMS would specifically be part of the aid, and the Pentagon has generally resisted discussing the use of the missiles in Ukraine, partly out of concern that it could inflame Russia by to admit that it was sending long-range weapons to Ukraine. war.
It is not clear whether the United States will send Ukraine another Patriot air defense system, as Germany and other allies are reportedly demanding. The systems are scarce and expensive, and giving Ukraine another could mean the country can no longer protect U.S. assets, both domestically and internationally.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Tuesday that the US aid package would enable “advanced air defense systems” for Ukraine, but did not specify what kind.
Mr Stoltenberg also said NATO allies were in the process of supplying F-16 jets to Ukraine. But the United States has so far refused to donate its fighter planes, although the air force has helped train some of the dozens of Ukrainian pilots who are learning to fly them so far. Officials have said about a dozen pilots should be ready to fly the F-16s in combat by July, but only six of the jets will have been delivered to Ukraine by then.
Will it be enough?
While the $61 billion aid package is intended to aid Ukraine, Pentagon officials have said as much as $48 billion will go to U.S. weapons manufacturers, either to replenish U.S. stockpiles that have been nearly depleted over the past two years of war or to build up additional weapons. weapons for Ukraine.
The $1 billion injection the Pentagon is preparing would come from remaining funds, and Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said it “could be on its way by the end of the week.” That could immediately help strengthen Ukraine’s frontline, where troops must quickly stop Russian drones, fighter jets and light bombers and prevent Ukraine from losing ground.
But Ukrainian officials appear skeptical that enough weapons will be delivered quickly or consistently in the coming months to keep up the momentum.
“If we get it, if we have it in our arms, then we have the opportunity to take this initiative and go further to protect Ukraine,” Mr. Zelensky told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” on Sunday. But, he said, “it depends on how quickly we get this help.”
Weapons and ammunition sent to Ukraine often come from Pentagon assets in Europe, with shipments coordinated by a staff of about 300 people in Germany.
Yet for months, U.S. and other allies have repeatedly warned that they could give Ukraine few weapons until weapons production could catch up with the war’s voracious demand. That prompted Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova, to wonder where the new weapons package would come from in an interview published Tuesday.
“Is this equipment available?” Ms Markarova told the Ukrainian daily Ukrainska Pravda. “Will we find and produce enough equipment quickly enough to get it?”
The funding helps, she said, but questioned whether all the weapons and equipment it would pay for are “ready for delivery.”
“Unfortunately not,” said Ms. Markarova.