In the next few days, Washington is planning to announce the allocation of another security aid package to Ukraine, which will amount to 1.3 billion dollars.
This is reported by Reuters with reference to its own sources. As practice shows, insiders of well-known Western media regarding the contents and cost of packages can be considered reliable information.
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According to the information released by the respected American media, it is about the aid package under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI) program, according to which weapons are ordered from manufacturers. This may indicate a distant prospect of the supply of appropriate means to Ukraine, in contrast to the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA), according to which weapons are transferred from the US Department of Defense stocks.
An analysis of the weapons planned for transfer indicates the anti-drone and drone focus of this aid package. For example, additional L3Harris’ Vehicle-Agnostic Modular Palletized ISR Rocket Equipment (VAMPIRE) which are efficient counter-drone systems.
We will remind that these systems were already announced by the USA before the transfer to Ukraine under the USAI program - the deadline for their delivery was in the middle of 2023. That is, most likely, this time we are talking about the second batch of these funds.
In addition to VAMPIRE, other anti-drone systems will be transferred to Ukraine, but already in the form of EW devices. We are talking about the products of the Australian company DroneShield. A few days ago, the compny managed to announce it got an order from an unnamed US government agency, noting that it is a record contract for the company for $33 million.
But it is impossible to indicate whether this order will really be for Ukraine, because the sighning of contracts may take place even after the announcement of the aid package. In any case, DroneShield's main products are anti-drone guns.
The aid package will also include kamikaze drones: the still secret Phoenix Ghost UAV by AVEVEX as well as the already well-known Switchblade by AeroVironment.
It should be noted that the total cost of the aid package directly indicates that there will be other samples among the weapons, as well as the fact that we are talking about a fairly significant number of these means. However, the terms of order fulfillment will also be measured not in days.
At the same time, Pentagon Chief Lloyd Austin promised on Tuesday, that the US will continue to transfer armored vehicles and artillery to Ukraine.
He said at a press conference following a videoconference meeting of the Contact Group on Defense of Ukraine that they will continue to transfer Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, Stryker armored vehicles, artillery.
Austin also said that the group members discussed further military assistance to Ukraine, in particular, the supply of ammunition. The issue of increasing the production of weapons and ammunition was also discussed at the meeting. In addition, the countries participating in the coalition to train Ukrainian pilots on the F-16 told about the preparations for this operation.
As Defense Express reported, Ukraine's Future F-16 Pilots Will Be Trained by Draken International Private Company in Romania.
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