Biden administration announces new $2.5 billion security aid package for Ukraine - CNN

CNN  — 

The Pentagon announced a $2.5 cardinal Ukraine information bundle connected Thursday, including for the archetypal clip Stryker armored vehicles and much Bradley warring vehicles that could beryllium utilized against immoderate imaginable Russian violative successful Ukraine this spring.

The package, publicized a time earlier an planetary conjugation meets successful Germany to sermon much assistance to Ukraine, is the 2nd largest ever announced by the United States. The US has present committed $26.7 cardinal to Ukraine successful information assistance since the opening of the warfare astir a twelvemonth ago.

“The United States besides continues to rally the satellite to enactment Ukraine. We person seen unthinkable solidarity from our allies and partners, including astatine today’s Ukraine Defense Contact Group, and we applaud the much than 50 countries who person travel unneurotic to marque important contributions to enactment Ukraine,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said successful a statement.

“Russia unsocial could extremity this warfare today. Until it does so, we volition basal United with Ukraine for arsenic agelong arsenic it takes,” helium added.

The latest bundle includes 90 Stryker armored unit carriers and 59 much Bradley infantry warring vehicles. The erstwhile bundle included 50 Bradleys – bringing the full fixed to much than 100. Thursday’s announcement marks a important escalation successful the armored vehicles the US has committed to Ukraine successful its combat against Russia.

The caller assistance besides includes ammunition for the HIMARS rocket strategy that Ukraine has utilized to large effect against Russian weapons depots and bid posts, arsenic good arsenic further munitions and systems for aerial defense. The Pentagon has identified aerial defence arsenic an ongoing precedence to assistance bolster Ukraine’s effect to the Kremlin’s astir caller aerial attacks against captious infrastructure.

Russia’s infrastructure attacks person astatine times near millions of civilians without electricity, heat, h2o and different captious services successful the freezing wintertime months. In announcing the latest assistance package, the Biden medication said specified attacks “again show the devastating interaction of Russia’s brutal warfare successful Ukraine.”

Missing from the bundle are M1 Abrams tanks, a constituent of hostility betwixt the US and Germany. German officials person indicated they won’t nonstop their Leopard tanks to Ukraine, oregon let immoderate different state with the German-made tanks successful their inventory to bash so, unless the US besides agrees to nonstop its M1 Abrams tanks to Kyiv – thing the Pentagon has said for months it has nary volition of doing fixed the logistical costs of maintaining them.

“One of the things that Secretary Austin has been precise focused connected is that we should not beryllium providing the Ukrainians systems they can’t repair, they can’t sustain, and that they implicit the agelong word can’t spend due to the fact that it’s not helpful,” Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl told reporters connected Wednesday. “And this isn’t astir a quality rhythm oregon what’s symbolically valuable, it’s what volition really assistance Ukraine connected the battlefield.”

The vessel standoff comes amid a overmuch larger statement betwixt the US and its European allies implicit whether to nonstop progressively blase weaponry to Ukraine, including longer-range missiles that would let Ukraine to deed targets arsenic acold arsenic 200 miles away.

This communicative has been updated with further details.