On July 1, 2022, the US Department of Defense announced the provision of another new package of military assistance to Ukraine totaling $ 820 million. Thus, the total amount of US military aid officially allocated to Kiev since the beginning of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine on February 24 now reaches $6.87 billion. The total amount of US military assistance to Ukraine since 2014 has reached $8.8 billion.
Test launch of the Raytheon AMRAAM-ER anti-aircraft guided missile from the launcher of the American-Norwegian Raytheon/Kongsberg NASAMS anti-aircraft missile system, 2016 (c) Raytheon Technologies
According to the US Department of Defense, the new package of military assistance to Ukraine, as well as the package announced on June 15, is divided into two parts. $ 50 million is allocated by the orders of the US President within his administrative powers (Presidential Drawdown of Security Assistance - PDA) and represents the operational allocation of property from the presence of the US Department of Defense. Another $770 million is allocated from the budget in accordance with the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI) program and represents a new tranche of $9 billion in military assistance to Ukraine approved by the US Congress as part of the well-known package of assistance to Ukraine and other Eastern European allies of the United States in the amount of $ 40 billion. These funds are directed to the production and purchase of new military equipment for Ukraine.
It is reported that as part of the $50 million assistance under the PDA, Ukraine will be provided with an additional number of GMLRS guided missiles for the previously allocated eight combat vehicles of the M142 HIMARS missile system.
In turn, as part of the package of $ 770 million under the USAI program for Ukraine, the following should be purchased::
- two NASAMS anti-aircraft missile systems;
- up to 150 thousand artillery rounds of 155 mm caliber;
- Four AN/TPQ-37 Firefinder radars for detecting artillery positions (the type of radar was reported at a briefing by an unnamed senior representative of the US Department of Defense on July 2).
It is emphasized that this notification under the USAI program "represents the beginning of the process of concluding contracts for the provision of additional capabilities to the armed forces of Ukraine."
The greatest resonance from this list was caused by the message about the planned provision to Ukraine of two NASAMS medium-range anti-aircraft missile systems jointly produced by Raytheon Technologies Corporation and the Norwegian Kongsberg Group. Ukraine will thus become the 14th customer of NASAMS air defense systems in the world, and, apparently, if these air defense systems are received this year, it will be the 11th recipient (ahead of Australia, India and Hungary). Hints in the American media about the increased range of the air defense systems planned for delivery to Ukraine suggest that NASAMS air defense systems with new AMRAAM-ER anti-aircraft missiles with a range of up to 50 km will be delivered to Ukraine (by now NASAMS complexes with AMRAAM-ER missiles have been ordered Qatar and Hungary).
