Washington continues to announce aid packages for Ukraine during the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi's visit to the United States.
After the announcement of $375 million aid package under the Presidential Decommissioning Assistance (PDA) program, when weapons are transferred from stockpiles, the aid package under the USAI program was announced. This is an initiative to promote Ukraine's defense capability, which involves ordering weapons for manufacturers.
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It is worth $2.4 billion, which means that it covers the entire balance of funds under this program that was budgeted in the United States for the current year. To get the next funding under this program, it will be necessary to wait not only for the results of the US elections, but also for the next budget to be passed by the Congress.
It should be added that spending all the planned funds under the PDA and USAI programs during Biden's term was a rather logical decision for the White House, as the new fiscal year begins on October 1 in the United States and the balance could simply be "burned up" in political disputes between Democrats and Republicans.
The contents of this aid package include the following:
- Ammunition and support for Ukrainian air defense systems;
- Air-to-ground munitions;
- Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) and components to support Ukrainian production of UAS;
- Counter-UAS equipment;
- Unmanned surface vessels;
- Secure communications equipment;
- Equipment and materiel to support Ukrainian munitions production;
- Spare parts, maintenance and sustainment support, and other ancillary equipment.
The main thing in it can be considered a certain transformation of the USAI from ordering weapons from its own manufacturers to cooperation between American and Ukrainian arms manufacturers. In particular, this is explicitly stated in the clauses on ensuring Ukrainian production of drones and ammunition.
We are talking about direct support for the Ukrainian defense industry on at least two points of this package. They, in turn, are of great importance. The reason is that there is currently a huge shortage of capacity in ammunition production around the world, while Ukraine can show how to produce drones en masse.
The third point that also deserves attention is air-to-ground munitions. It should be noted that this term was first used in the $375 million aid package. It most likely contains AGM-154 JSOWs that can be converted into cruise missiles. But the transfer of this particular ammunition under the USAI program is questionable, because it is transferred under the PDA program.
Earlier Defense Express reported that the White House had announced long-range cruise bombs for F-16 aircraft in aid package for Ukraine worth $7.9 bln.
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