On August 24, 2022, US President Joe Biden announced the allocation of a new package of US military assistance to Ukraine, timed to coincide with the 31st anniversary of the proclamation of independence of this republic. The announced volume of this aid package amounts to $2.98 billion, which makes it the largest one so far allocated to Ukraine. 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 $12.9 billion. The total amount of US military assistance to Ukraine since 2014 has exceeded $ 15.5 billion.
The VAMPIRE (Vehicle-Agnostic Modular Palletized ISR Rocket Equipment) ground-based complex for combating small unmanned aerial vehicles of the American corporation L3Harris is planned to be delivered to Ukraine. The complex includes an electron-optical detection station on a lifting mast and a four-shot launcher of 70 mm APKWS guided missiles with a laser semi-active guidance system. The complex is modular and can be mounted on any vehicle in two hours (with) L3Harris The feature of the new aid package is that it is entirely allocated from the budget in accordance with the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI) program and represents a new tranche of the volume of military assistance to Ukraine approved by the US Congress in the amount of $ 9 billion per year. 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 in the United States and the purchase of new military equipment for Ukraine. That is, all military equipment under the new package should be ordered by industry.
According to the US Department of Defense, the new package of military assistance to Ukraine includes:
- six NASAMS anti-aircraft missile systems (in addition to the two previously ordered for Ukraine), with additional anti-aircraft guided missiles for NASAMS complexes; - up to 245,000 artillery rounds of 155 mm caliber; - up to 65,000 120 mm mortar mines; - up to 24 artillery position detection radars;
- AeroVironment RQ-20 Puma unmanned reconnaissance aircraft complexes and auxiliary equipment for the Scan Eagle unmanned reconnaissance aircraft complexes allocated in the current package;- L3Harris VAMPIRE ground-based anti-unmanned aerial vehicles (Vehicle-Agnostic Modular Palletized ISR Rocket Equipment);
- guided missiles with a laser guidance system (apparently, 70-mm APKWS missiles, used, among other things, as part of VAMPIRE complexes; - means for training, support and maintenance.
Due to the fact that the systems provided under the new package must be ordered by industry, then, apparently, a significant part of them will actually be delivered after a fairly long time. At a briefing on the allocation of this package, US Deputy Secretary of Defense for Political Affairs Colin Kahl said that "as for the systems in this package, we are actually talking about systems that will take months, and in some cases 1-2-3 years, to be delivered to Ukraine."
