WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House announced Friday a new $3.75 billion military aid package to help Ukraine and its eastern NATO neighbors as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues.
The latest aid will include Bradley armored vehicles for Ukraine. Armored personnel carriers are used to transport troops to combat and are known as “tank killers” because of the anti-tank missiles they can fire.
The largest U.S. aid package to date for Kyiv includes the withdrawal of $2.85 billion from Pentagon stocks to be sent directly to Ukraine and $225 million in foreign military funding to build long-term capacity and support Ukraine’s military modernization, according to White. house. It also includes $682 million in foreign military funding for European allies to help fill military equipment donations already made to Ukraine.
“The war is at a critical point and we must do everything we can to help Ukraine resist Russian aggression,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said when announcing the aid.
The immediate aid to Ukraine includes 50 Bradleys as well as 500 anti-tank missiles and 250,000 rounds of ammunition for carriers. The US is also sending 100 M113 armored personnel carriers, 55 mine-resistant ambush protected vehicles, or MRAPS, and 138 Humvees, as well as ammunition for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System and other air defense systems and weapons and thousands of artillery rounds, according to the Pentagon.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the Bradley would be very useful for Ukraine during heavy fighting in the rural areas of eastern Ukraine.
“It is very connected to the war that we see on the ground now and what we anticipate we will see throughout the winter months,” said Kirby.
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The new US package was detailed by the White House and the Pentagon as Germany announced it would supply around 40 Marder armored personnel carriers to Ukraine in the first quarter of this year.
Germany announced its intention to send the Marder APC after a phone call between Chancellor Olaf Scholz and President Joe Biden on Thursday.
“These 40 vehicles should be ready in the first quarter so they can be handed over to Ukraine,” Scholz spokesman Steffen Hebestreit told reporters in Berlin. Germany plans to train Ukrainian forces to use the vehicles, and Hebestreit said experts expect the process to take about eight weeks.
Germany has provided significant military aid, including howitzers, the Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft gun and the IRIS-T surface-to-air missile system, with three more due this year.
Scholz has long been wary of pressure to supply the Marder and other heavier Western-made vehicles such as tanks, insisting that Germany would not undertake such shipments. Officials noted that other countries have not yet provided it. But this week, France, the US and Germany all announced plans to deploy similar armored vehicles that lack tanks.
Germany last year championed a deal in which its eastern NATO ally sent familiar Soviet-era equipment to Ukraine, and Germany also supplied those countries with more modern Western-made equipment.
Hebestreit said there had been talks with the US and others since mid-December about how to support Ukraine moving forward. He said the possibility of supplying Soviet-made equipment is “slowly coming to an end,” as the situation in Ukraine changes with Russia’s massive attacks on infrastructure and fighting could escalate as the weather heats up.
Ukraine and some German parliamentarians inside and outside Scholz’s government coalition also asked Germany to send Leopard 2 battle tanks. Advocates of sending Leopard were cheered by the move in Marder APCs and vowed to continue to press the point.
But Hebestreit said battle tanks were not an issue in Thursday’s phone call between Scholz and Biden. He said that Germany will stick to the principle of supporting Ukraine as strongly as possible, but not only by supplying weapons and ensuring that NATO does not become Russia’s warring party in Ukraine.
Germany also said Thursday it would follow the U.S. supply of Patriot air defense missile batteries to Ukraine. This is due to US demand and is also expected in the first quarter, Hebestreit said.
Explain above the Patriot system that Germany has sent or plans to send to Slovakia and Poland.
Associated Press reporters Seung Min Kim and Aamer Madhani contributed reporting.
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