US President Joe Biden ordered his administration to allocate another military aid package to Ukraine worth up to $600 million, the White House press service said in a statement on Thursday.
According to the document, Biden delegated to the US Secretary of State “the authority <…> to direct the drawdown of up to $600 million in defense articles and services of the Department of Defense, and military education and training, to provide assistance to Ukraine.”
In a written statement on Thursday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that “together with our Allies and partners, we are delivering the arms and equipment that Ukraine’s forces are utilizing so effectively as they continue their successful counter-offensive.” “President Biden has been clear we will support the people of Ukraine for as long as it takes,” he added.
So far, the US administration has remained silent on what types of weapons will be supplied to Kiev. In turn, White House National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby told CNN on Thursday that US military aid would most likely include advanced missile systems and howitzers. According to Blinken, however, the package “includes additional arms, munitions, and equipment from U.S. Department of Defense inventories.”
On February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that, in response to a request from the Donbass republics, he made a decision to carry out a special military operation in Ukraine. He underscored that Moscow does not plan to occupy Ukrainian territories, instead planning to demilitarize and denazify the country. In response, the West started introducing sweeping sanctions against Russia and shipping weapons and military vehicles to Kiev already worth tens of billions of dollars at this point. A number of Western political figures acknowledged that this is effectively an economic war against Russia. On March 16, Putin stated that the Western sanctions policy against Moscow has all hallmarks of aggression, adding that the policy of deterrence of Russia is the long-term strategy of the West.
