US to send $3 billion in aid to Ukraine, including Bradley Fighting Vehicles

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration has announced a new $3 billion military assistance package for Ukraine that will include Bradley Fighting Vehicles, which officials say would be particularly useful to Ukrainian units fighting Russian forces in the Donbass region in the east of the country.

Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said the administration would also send $682 million to countries on NATO's eastern flank, some of which have reduced their own arsenals to bring more military equipment to Ukraine.

The Ukrainians have requested the infantry fighting vehicles as they continue to push back the forces of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Officials said the vehicles would aid in what the military calls combined arms maneuvers, which refer to the close coordination of air power, artillery and ground forces in operations.

"It's a lot of farmland, a lot of open terrain and it lends itself well to the kinds of abilities that are in this package," said John Kirby, the strategic communications coordinator for the National Security Council. "The Bradley fighting vehicles are very important in terms of being able to do what we call combined arms maneuver warfare."

The supply of the armored vehicles was planned in a joint statement by the United States and Germany on Thursday, and comes amid a flurry of new aid announcements from Ukraine's allies, including France.

In a briefing to reporters on Friday afternoon, Laura Cooper, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense who led the Pentagon's military assistance program at the Ukraine, gave details of new funding of $2.85 billion. package of weapons, ammunition and vehicles - the Pentagon's 29th equipment levy since August 2021 - and $225 million in foreign military funding for Ukraine.

The most important items to come Pentagon stocks consist of 50 M2A2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, with 500 TOW anti-tank missiles and 250,000 rounds of 25 millimeter ammunition to fire.

The Bradley is designed to carry a squad of half a dozen soldiers into battle and provide fire support with its turret-mounted 25mm cannon. It also carries TOW missiles that can destroy enemy tanks, and the vehicle's hull is shrouded in advanced armor blocks to protect it from incoming fire. Some versions of the vehicle are fitted with laser rangefinders and thermal optics to help the three-soldier crew find targets they can engage, which would give Ukrainian troops an edge on the battlefield.

For the first time, the United States will provide 18 Paladin self-propelled howitzers, along with an unknown number of 155 millimeter shells to be fired. The Pentagon will also send another 36 105-millimeter towed howitzers and ammunition.

The United States will send 4,000 Zuni rockets – eight-foot-long unguided rockets fired by warplanes that can carry around 10 pounds of explosives and US RIM-7 Sea Sparrow air defense missiles which Ms Cooper says have been adapted to work with Ukrainian Soviet-era Buk missile launchers .

"It was a creative solution that required some engineering finesse," she said of adapting US missiles to the Russian-made launchers. "But we are very happy that it works for the Ukrainians."

The Pentagon will send 100 additional M113 armored personnel carriers, in addition to the 200 already committed for Kyiv , and another 138 Humvee trucks added to the 1,300 the United States has already sent.

"When you look at the United States and the international response in providing the equipment, and especially now, the training that we provide, it gives Ukraine the opportunity to change the equation on the battlefield and gain momentum and not just defend their territory, but hopefully the, to take back territory,” Brig. Pentagon spokesman Gen. Patrick S. Ryder told reporters during the briefing with Ms. Cooper. "A...