Pentagon announced $275 million military aid to Ukraine

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The United States has recently announced a $275 million military assistance package for Ukraine, according to Sabrina Singh, Pentagon spokesperson on Friday.

“Today the Department [of Defense] is announcing the authorization of the 24th presidential drawdown of security assistance, valued at up to $275 million to meet Ukraine's critical security and defense needs," Singh said at a briefing.

The package in question will include HIMARS launchers ammunition, and 155mm artillery rounds; two NASAMS (National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems) will also be delivered to Ukrainian soldiers once they complete their training on the systems, according to Singh. 

"On your question with training on the NASAMS, there is a training program with this system, and once it has been completed, the system will be ready for delivery to Ukraine and we anticipate that that training program will conclude soon," Singh said during a press briefing, adding that the first two NASAMS will be sent to Ukraine by next month. 

Raytheon Technologies CEO Greg Hayes, earlier this week, said that the 2 NASAMS which were recently delivered to the US government were already being installed in Ukraine. Six more NASAMS will also be provided to Ukraine in the future. 

Earlier this week, a former Pentagon official, Wesley Hallman, told sources that the $17.6 billion worth of military equipment provided to Ukraine is pressuring the US defense industry's capacity to replenish stockpiles. 

"I was talking to somebody that works at a company that produces some of those munitions that we're depleting because we're giving a lot of it to Ukraine right now, and I said, 'How long is it going to take you to get your line up and running,' they said it's gonna be about two years," the official, Wesley Hallman, said.

"When I interacted with that executive a couple of weeks ago, that guy was telling me it was gonna take two years, two years until they could get to the rate of production where they could start truly replenishing at the rates needed. That's a long time."

On October 17, the Wall Street Journal published an article that explained that in a possible war with China, the US would likely lose because the Ukraine conflict exposed vulnerabilities in the US defense industry.