US $2.2BN foreign military financing for Ukraine and 18 countries, including Bulgaria
The US government is notifying Congress on September 8 of its intention to make a further $2.2 billion available in long-term investments under Foreign Military Financing to bolster the security of Ukraine and 18 of its neighbours, including Bulgaria.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced the move during a visit on September 8 to Ukraine’s capital city Kyiv.
Blinken said that he had informed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that on the authority of US President Joe Biden, he was authorising the 20th drawdown since September 2021 of US arms and equipment for Ukraine.
“This $675 million drawdown includes additional arms, munitions, and equipment from US Department of Defence inventories ̶ equipment that Ukraine’s forces have used so effectively for their country’s defence,” Blinken said.
“In addition, we are also notifying Congress today of our intent to make a further $2.2 billion available in long-term investments under Foreign Military Financing to bolster the security of Ukraine and 18 of its neighbours; including many of our Nato Allies, as well as other regional security partners potentially at risk of future Russian aggression,” he said.
These announcements will bring the total US military assistance for Ukraine to approximately $15.2 billion since the beginning of the Biden Administration, Blinken said.
US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, speaking on September 8 at the Fifth Ukraine Defence Contact Group meeting in Rammstein, Germany, said that the package authorised by Biden on September 7 includes more Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS), 105 millimetre howitzers, artillery munitions, HARM missiles, Humvees, armoured ambulances, anti-tank systems, small arms, and more.
Austin said that since the contact group’s previous meeting in July, many Allies and partners had come forward with their own important new deliveries of advanced radars, and tanks, and armoured personnel carriers.
The UK has sent a second tranche of M270 MLRS launchers and munitions, bringing British assistance to Ukraine to a total of 2.3 billion pounds, Austin said.
Germany and Denmark have both also announced significant packages of military assistance, he said.
“I’d also like to thank Poland for serving as a linchpin of our efforts to support the Ukrainians and for its generous donations of military equipment. Earlier this summer, for example, Poland transferred three battalions of 155-millimetre self-propelled howitzers to Ukraine,” Austin said.
Slovakia, North Macedonia, and several other countries had announced their own critical donations of tanks and other heavy armour, he said.
(Screenshot via Blinken’s Twitter account)
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