WASHINGTON — The White House has approved an additional $200 million in weapons and equipment for Ukraine, administration officials said...
WASHINGTON — The White House has approved an additional $200 million in weapons and equipment for Ukraine, administration officials said Saturday, responding to urgent requests for President Volodymyr Zelensky for more help in avoiding the Russian invasion.
The latest weapons package, which officials say includes Javelin anti-tank missiles and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, follows a $350 million weapons package the Biden administration approved last month. In total, the administration authorized $1.2 billion worth of weapons for Ukraine over the past year, officials said.
The weapons come from existing US military stockpiles in Europe and are flown to neighboring countries such as Poland and Romania, where they are shipped overland to western Ukraine. Within a week of the start of the Russian assault, the United States and NATO pushed more than 17,000 anti-tank weapons, including javelins, into the hands of Ukrainian commanders.
Russia has so far not attacked those shipments because its forces have been too busy fighting in other parts of Ukraine, Pentagon officials said. But on Saturday, according to the Interfax news agency, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei A. Ryabkov warned that Moscow would start firing on those shipments, raising fears of an escalation in the conflict.
The West has rejected Mr Zelensky’s repeated demands to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine and supply Ukraine with Polish MIG-29 fighter jets for fear of dragging states down United and NATO in a direct confrontation with Russia, a nuclear power.
Instead, the Biden administration and 14 other allies sent in anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons that analysts say were effective in attacking Russian military power on the ground and in the air. Pentagon officials said they were also working closely with Eastern European countries, particularly to provide more surface-to-air missile defenses to Ukraine, adding that such deliveries could be announced in the future. the next days.
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