On August 19, 2022, the US Department of Defense announced the provision of a large-scale new package of military assistance to Ukraine totaling $ 775 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 $9.9 billion. The total amount of US military assistance to Ukraine since 2014 has exceeded $ 12.6 billion.
Launch of an anti-tank guided missile of the TOW-2 anti-tank missile system from a launcher based on an armored vehicle HMMWV of the US Marine Corps at the combat training center in Twin Palms (California), 05.05.2016 (c) Clarence L. Wimberly / US Marine Corps According to the US Department of Defense, this new package of military assistance to Ukraine has traditionally been allocated by orders the President of the United States 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.
The new announced package includes:
- an unnamed number of high-precision guided GMLRS missiles for HIMARS missile systems; - 16 towed 105 mm howitzers [probably M119] and 36 thousand artillery shots to them of 105 mm caliber; - 15 tactical unmanned reconnaissance aircraft complexes Boeing ScanEagle;- 40 armored vehicles International MaxxPro class MRAP with minesweepers;
- 50 HMMWV armored vehicles; - an "additional" number of HARM anti-radar missiles;- 1,500 TOW anti-tank guided missiles;- 1,000 Javelin anti-tank guided missiles; - 2,000 anti-tank shots [according to a subsequent <span>explanation</span> by the US Department of Defense - to Carl-Gustaf hand-held anti-tank grenade launchers];- mine countermeasures;- explosive ammunition and demolition equipment;
- means of secure tactical radio communication;
- night vision devices, thermal imaging devices, optical devices and laser rangefinders.
In this package, attention is drawn to the first announced provision of TOW ATGM to Ukraine - oddly enough, this most massive American and Western ATGM has not yet been delivered to the Ukrainian side. Also, for the first time, the delivery of ScanEagle UAVs to Ukraine, widely distributed among American allies and supplied even to Afghanistan, was announced.
It is also worth noting the "legalization" of supplies of HARM anti-radar missiles and International MaxxPro armored vehicles of the MRAP class announced for the first time in this package, although both of these weapons have already been "lit up" in the territory of Ukraine.
Regarding HARM missiles, at an August 19 briefing on the allocation of a new aid package to Ukraine, an unnamed senior representative of the US Department of Defense said that HARM missiles are used from Ukrainian combat aircraft: "We are providing additional high-speed anti-radiation missiles. These are HARM missiles. Ukraine has successfully used these missiles. They have successfully integrated them into Ukrainian aircraft, and this allows Ukraine to detect and destroy Russian radars, so we will provide additional HARM missiles." and further: "The plane with which they [Ukrainians] integrated it [HARM] is their MiG aircraft. They... they actually successfully integrated this as something we identified as technically feasible, and based on this definition of feasibility, we gave them this opportunity. So this is actually the second tranche of HARM that we are providing."