On September 28, 2022, the US Department of Defense announced the allocation of a new package of US military assistance to Ukraine in the amount of $ 1.1 billion.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 has now exceeded $16.2 billion. The total amount of US military aid to Ukraine since 2014 has reached $19 billion.
Armored Vehicle AM General M1152 HMMWV US Army (c) US ArmyThe peculiarity of this military assistance package is that it represents a targeted allocation of budgetary funds in accordance with the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI) program for the purchase and production of new weapons and military equipment from industry for subsequent transfer to Ukraine.
The total amount of these funds was 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. Of these, $6 billion was allocated directly for the production and purchase of new military equipment for Ukraine in the 2022 fiscal year (that is, by September 30, 2022). Earlier, out of this amount, the US Department of Defense notified the US Congress of plans to spend and contract a total of more than $ 4.8 billion, and thus, the package now announced in the amount of another $ 1.1 billion completely closes the allocated limit of funds of $ 6 billion on the eve of the end of the 2022 fiscal year. [...]
At the same time, the bulk of the military equipment ordered by USAI will arrive in Ukraine only after a considerable time. A little earlier, it was officially reported that the actual volume of contracts concluded under the USAI by the US Department of Defense with industry from April to September 22, 2022 amounted to only $ 1.2272 billion, and, apparently, the vast majority of the property ordered under them has not yet arrived in Ukraine.
The new USAI military assistance package includes (recall that we are talking about plans to order new production property from industry):
- 18 M142 HIMARS ground-based missile systems and ammunition for them (earlier Ukraine received 16 HIMARS complexes from the presence of the US Department of Defense). An unnamed representative of the US Department of Defense confirmed on September 28 that "the purchase and delivery of these HIMARS complexes and ammunition for them will take several years";
- 150 HMMWV armored vehicles;
- 150 trucks for towing weapons (probably artillery pieces);
- 40 heavy trucks (probably NEMTT) and 80 tank trailers;
- two onboard radars for unmanned aerial vehicles:
- 20 multi-purpose radars (apparently AN/MPQ-64 Sentinel radars used both for air defense tasks and for detecting artillery positions);
- complexes for combating unmanned aerial vehicles (according to a number of reports, these are BlueHalo's Titan jamming complexes);
- tactical radio communications, surveillance and reconnaissance equipment, optical devices;
- explosive equipment and charges;
- body armor and other field equipment;
- financial resources for training and logistical support.
