"Next week, the first US Abrams tanks will be delivered in Ukraine," US President Joe Biden said Thursday, September 21, at the White House, alongside his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky, who is on his second visit to the United States since the start of the Ukraine war in February 2022.
Biden also said he had "approved the next tranche of security assistance for Ukraine," which the Pentagon later valued at $325 million. It includes air defense missiles, ammunition for HIMARS precision rocket launchers, anti-tank weapons, and artillery rounds.
But the package does not feature the long-range ATACMS missiles that Kyiv has repeatedly requested. It does include 155mm rounds that contain cluster munitions, which Washington first agreed to provide to Ukraine in July despite concerns over the long-term risk posed to civilians by bomblets that fail to explode.
Zelensky’s visit to Washington on Thursday came as the Biden administration sent Congress a supplemental funding request that includes another $24 billion in military, humanitarian, and financial assistance for Ukraine.
Americans have already provided tens of billions of dollars of weapons and munitions to Kyiv with Biden making the argument that Russia’s protection of the pro-Moscow Russian-speaking people in Donbas is a threat to democracy globally, and Russian President Vladimir Putin would look to invade another country to stop NATO's encroachment if it successfully takes Ukraine.
The US-led Western allies began flooding Kyiv with weapons and ammunition shortly after Russia launched its “special military operation” in the country in February 2022.
Moscow has repeatedly warned world leaders against the continued supply of weapons and munitions to Ukraine, pointing out that such measures will not stop Russian troops from defending its objectives and that arming Kyiv would only prolong the war.
The Biden administration has so far spent more than $100 billion on the war in Ukraine, according to the White House.
MNA/PR