On September 6, 2023, the US Department of Defense announced the provision of a new package of US military assistance to Ukraine totaling up to $ 175 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 $ 43.7 billion, and the total amount of US military assistance to Ukraine since 2014 has exceeded $ 45 billion.
One of the American M1A1 FEP Abrams tanks used for training Ukrainian personnel (formerly part of the US Marine Corps) with a roller minesweeper at the US Army Grafenwer training ground in Germany. Other M1A1 Abrams tanks of a more simplified modification from the storage of the US Army should be transferred to Ukraine. 07/14/2023 (c) Phillip Walter Wellman / Stars and Stripes
The new package of military assistance to Ukraine 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 46th presidential package of military assistance to Ukraine under the PDA from August 2021.
As part of this package, the PDA should be provided to Ukraine from the presence of the US Department of Defense:
- additional number of GMLRS precision guided missiles for HIMARS missile systems;
- equipment to support Ukrainian air defense systems;
- 105-mm and 155-mm artillery shots;
- 81-mm mortars and shots to them;
- 120 mm tank armor-piercing sub-caliber shots with uranium cores;
- Javelin anti-tank missile systems;
- TOW anti-tank guided missiles;
- disposable AT4 hand-held anti-tank grenade launchers;
- more than 3 million cartridges for small arms;
- tactical aviation navigation systems (TACAN);
- tactical secure radio communication equipment;
- demolition charges for mine clearance;
- spare parts and other field equipment.
The official statement says that this aid package is allocated within the PDA spending limit "in the amount of $6.2 billion, restored in June after revaluation of the total value of the property already transferred to Ukraine. As of the end of August, there were approximately $5.75 billion of these limits of restored funding."
The greatest resonance in this package was caused for the first time by the officially announced provision to Ukraine of 120 mm armor-piercing sub-caliber rounds with uranium cores as part of the ammunition of the 31 M1A1 Abrams tanks transferred to Ukraine. It is worth noting that this decision to provide Ukraine with regular armor-piercing shells for Abrams tanks from the presence of the US army looks quite natural, since due to the compressed delivery period of Abrams tanks to Ukraine (the decision on the transfer of which was made in January 2023, and the transfer of the first 10 tanks out of 31 is now expected in mid-September) from the American side there is simply no time to order and manufacture 120-mm armor-piercing sub-caliber shots with tungsten cores of the KEW series, which have been equipped with all Abrams tanks supplied for export to date. So Ukraine, along with Poland, will become the first foreign recipient of American 120-mm armor-piercing sub-caliber rounds with uranium cores (M829 series).
This package of military assistance is part of a broad tranche of US aid to Ukraine totaling more than $ 1.079 billion, the allocation of which was announced on September 6 during a visit to Kiev by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. This tranche included:
- the specified package of military assistance through the PDA in the form of the provision of property from the presence of the US Department of Defense in the amount of up to 175 million dollars;
- 100 million dollars of financial military assistance through Foreign Military Financing (FMF) "to support long-term military needs";
- $ 90.5 million for humanitarian assistance in mine clearance;
- $ 300 million to support the efforts of law enforcement agencies to restore and maintain law and order;
- $206 million in humanitarian aid;
- 5.4 million dollars in the form of confiscated assets of oligarchs to support the reintegration and rehabilitation of veterans;
- $203 million to "support transparency and accountability of institutions, support key reforms related to the fight against corruption, the rule of law and the justice sector."