The package will include $300 million worth of weapons.
By LARA SELIGMAN and ALEXANDER WARD
03/12/2024
POLITICO
The U.S. is planning to send a number of additional Army Tactical Missile Systems to Ukraine, as part of a new $300 million package of military aid, according to two U.S. officials with knowledge of the discussions.
The U.S. will send Kyiv additional Anti-Personnel/Anti-Materiel, or APAM, missiles, which are an older version of the long-range ATACMS, according to one of the officials. The missiles travel 100 miles and carry warheads containing hundreds of cluster bomblets. The officials were granted anonymity to speak ahead of an announcement.
The U.S. first revealed that it had secretly sent an initial shipment of APAMs in September, after President Joe Biden approved the plan to provide Kyiv with longer-range weapons. The administration has debated sending additional ATACMS for weeks, as Ukraine struggles to prevent Russia from making battlefield gains, according to a Defense Department official.
The White House announced on Tuesday that it would send an “emergency” package of aid to Ukraine, including artillery rounds and additional rounds for the 155mm howitzers and the Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters that the Pentagon was able to use cost savings from previous contracts to make a “modest amount” of new security aid available right now without impacting U.S. military readiness.
If history is any guide, ATACMS may not appear on the public list of weapons included in the latest package. Officials did not disclose that they were providing the missile in the first shipment last summer, due to concerns over operational security.
Asked on Tuesday whether the missile is in the latest package, Sullivan said he had no announcements on that topic.
The news comes as Congress stalls on passing Biden’s supplemental request that includes additional funding for the war in Ukraine, as well as aid for Israel and Taiwan. The Pentagon has been unable to send additional weapons to Kyiv since December, when it ran out of money to replenish its stocks. Soldiers on the front lines have been running out of ammunition and air defenses as lawmakers bicker over the legislation.
Biden will meet Tuesday afternoon with Poland’s top two leaders, fierce political rivals, to make the case that differences should be set aside for the defense of Ukraine.
While Ukrainians will welcome the new weapons, the latest package is only a temporary solution. Pentagon officials say they still need the full supplemental to cover costs to replenish more than $10 billion worth of weapons it has sent Kyiv from the U.S. military’s own stocks.
“This is not an alternative path for a supplemental,” said another DOD official on Friday of the plan to use Army savings for Ukraine.
Paul McLeary contributed to this report.