On March 3, 2023, the US Department of Defense announced the provision of a new package of US military assistance to Ukraine in the amount of $ 400 million. Thus, the total amount of US military assistance officially allocated to Kiev since the beginning of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine on February 24, 2022 now amounts to about $ 32.2 billion, and the total amount of US military assistance to Ukraine since 2014 has exceeded $34.9 billion.
M60 AVLB tank bridge pavers in the Regular Engineering unit of the US Army, 02/28/2020 (c) US Department of DefenseThis package of military assistance is allocated by the orders of the US President within his administrative powers (Presidential Drawdown of Security Assistance - PDA) and is an operational allocation of property from the presence of the US Department of Defense.
This is the 33rd presidential package of military assistance to Ukraine under the PDA from August 2021.
According to the US Department of Defense, the new package of assistance to Ukraine included (quantitative parameters, as usual, have not been specified recently):
- an unnamed additional number of GMLRS precision guided missiles for HIMARS missile systems;
- an unnamed number of 155 mm artillery rounds;
- an unnamed number of 105 mm artillery rounds;
- an unnamed number of rounds of 25 mm caliber for automatic guns of M2 Bradley transferred infantry fighting vehicles;
- an unnamed number of AVLB tank bridge-laying vehicles (Armored Vehicle-Launched Bridge);
- demolition and engineering property;
- control and diagnostic equipment for previously delivered equipment;
- spare parts and other field equipment.
Among the transferred property, special attention is paid to the AVLB (Armored Vehicle-Launched Bridge) tank pavers delivered to Ukraine for the first time on the basis of the M60 tank (in fact, most of the bridge pavers of this type in the American army were converted in 1987-1996 on the chassis of former M60A2 tanks). Most likely, bridge-laying machines with the most modern bridge structures MLC 85 with a load capacity class of 85 "short" tons (77 metric tons) will be transferred to Ukraine. In total, the US armed forces have received 125 AVLB bridge-laying vehicles based on the M60 tank since the early 1960s, some of them are still used by the US Army and Marine Corps. According to official data, in 2017, the US Army had 217 MLC 85 bridge structures for these bridge pavers.
