US announces new $300mln military assistance package for Ukraine
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John Kirby announces a new military package for Ukraine, which will be valued at $300 million and will contain munitions for Patriot air defense systems.
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National Security Council Spokesperson John Kirby speaks during the daily briefing at the White House in Washington, Wednesday, May 31, 2023 (AP)
The US announced a new $300 million military assistance package for Ukraine, White House National Security Council Spokesperson John Kirby said on Wednesday.
"We’ve got an upcoming package here, which will be the 39th drawdown of equipment," Kirby said during a press brief.
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Significantly, the new package is set to entail munitions for Patriot air defense systems and other weapons announced Kirby, who said, "We [US] will use that package, that we’re announcing today, to provide Ukraine with additional munitions for Patriot air defense systems."
According to the Spokesperson, the package will further include Avenger air defense, Stinger anti-aircraft systems, ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, and other artillery, as well as anti-armor systems.
The Pentagon revealed in a new press release that the new package will be valued at $300 million and contain "artillery, anti-armor capabilities, and ammunition, including tens of millions of rounds of small arms ammunition."
'Mistakenly', US could give $3bln more in arms for Ukraine
The Pentagon has overestimated the worth of the weapons it has offered to Ukraine by at least $3 billion; a miscalculation that might negate the need to ask Congress for extra money to maintain the war in Ukraine this spring, according to reports by unnamed sources, cited by the Wall Street Journal on May 19.
"Accidentally", the Pentagon valued old equipment that existed in US stocks at the price of new equipment and thus, submitted a greater price value to at least some of the weapons that the Pentagon delivered to Ukraine, the sources claimed.
The discrepancy was discovered in March during an internal audit, and the Biden administration may no longer require more financing from Congress for the following year, according to the sources.
It is worth noting that since the start of the war in Ukraine, nearly $40 billion worth of military assistance has been given to Ukraine by the Pentagon. Given the newly-found discrepancies, announcements of military aid have been corrected to show the proper spending.
Read more: Patriot systems, US-trained soldiers landed in Ukraine: Reports
A Pentagon statement noted that "in some cases, the services used a replacement cost over the net book value cost, so thereby they overestimated the value of the equipment that was drawn down from the stocks."
Currently, and without accounting for the overestimation error, the Pentagon has approximately $2.7 billion remaining to spend on weaponizing Ukraine. The result of the overestimation has effectively now doubled that numbered to reach approximately $5.7 billion, and thus Pentagon argued that the White House needed to decide whether to return to Congress to request further funding for Ukraine aid.
According to Pentagon officials, the provision of those weapons was based on what the Pentagon had on hand in its inventory, not on ledger books, thus the wrong, higher value estimations did not unintentionally deprive Ukraine of the weapons its soldiers may have received under proper accounting.
“In no way did the overvaluation constrain our support to Ukraine,” the official said.
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