The United States has announced four hundred million dollars in additional military aid for Ukraine.
“The U.S. Department of Defense has announced it will fund T-72 tanks sent to Ukraine, deepening its involvement in the war in defiance of repeated warnings by Russia.
The refurbished T-72 tanks are part of a $400 million military assistance package by the U.S. that also includes armored vehicles, drones and a budget to refurbish air defense missiles. It will bring the current administration’s total commitment to Kiev to nearly $19 billion.
The additional military, ground and air capabilities come as Ukrainian forces are reportedly pushing forward on an offensive to retake the Moscow-controlled Kherson region in southern Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday announced that civilians need to be evacuated from Kherson, where Russian forces have been evacuating since mid-October.
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenskyy has called for NATO to supply tanks.
On Friday Zelenskyy tweeted that Ukraine is ‘thankful to President and the people of the United States for another $400 military assistance package’.
Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh said the T-72 tanks will all come from the Czech Republic. The United States will pay for 45 of them to be refurbished, while the Netherlands will pay to refurbish the other 45.
Singh said some of the tanks are expected to be delivered by the end of December.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Friday that Ukraine is making ‘incremental progress’ in the south.
‘There is some incremental progress by the Ukrainians in the south and, quite frankly, up in the northeast as well, as they continue to try to push the Russian lines back even further’, he said.
Kirby added that the Russian lines are ‘largely static and deepening’.
Kirby said part of the $400 million will be directed to manufacturers to refurbish HAWK air defense missiles
‘We’ll spend the money to get these HAWK interceptors back up to code, and then in the future presidential drawdown we’ll deliver them right to Ukraine. That’s an example of evolving to meet the needs’, he said.
The package also includes 250 M1117 Armored Security Vehicles and 1,100 new Phoenix Ghost drones.
Kirby added that the Biden administration is working with Congress to sustain military, financial and economic support for Ukraine.
The United States has provided more than $18 billion in military assistance to Ukraine since February. The U.S. Agency for International Development has provided $9.88 billion in development and humanitarian assistance.
Russia has repeatedly warned that supplying Kiev with more and more weapons will only exacerbate the conflict, which is now in its ninth month.
Continuously flooding Ukraine with weapons ‘will only drag the conflict out and make it more painful for the Ukrainian side, but it will not change our goals and the end result’, the Kremlin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said earlier this month.
Peskov insisted that the U.S. was in reality engaged in the Ukraine conflict. ‘The U.S. de facto has become deeply involved’, he said.
His remarks echoed those of Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who said that Washington had ‘been participating de facto in this war for a long time’.
‘This war is being controlled by the Anglo-Saxons’, Lavrov said”. -Press TV
America’s Founders had a clearly stated intent that the country that they risked their lives to create should not mimic empires of the past, nor go about the world “seeking monsters to destroy”. The country’s founders explicitly warned against America becoming entangled in Europe’s endless wars.
Weeks ago, House Minority leader Republican Kevin McCarthy warned that the GOP will not necessarily continue to write a “blank check” for Ukraine if they obtain the House majority in next month’s election, reflecting his party’s growing skepticism about unlimited financial support for the corrupt regime in place in Kiev.
Unfortunately, I’m nowhere near as optimistic about the Republican Party’s commitment to supposed “American First” intentions to cease the never-ending foreign aid campaign to fight the Kremlin, and neither is former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer, Philip M. Giraldi.
“Anyone talking sense about Ukraine in Washington is being shut down by forces within the political parties themselves working together with a compliant national media that is mis-representing everything that is taking place on the ground”. — Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D.
The preparation for this war has been carrying on for over a decade, and it’s preposterous for anyone to think that it’s all likely to end any time soon.
Barring a substantial military loss or the financial collapse of the West, this ongoing conflict in Ukraine between Russia and NATO leaves the dispiriting impression of being a ceaseless and everlasting struggle.