The State Department announced on Tuesday an “emergency foreign military sale” to Ukraine for $138 million worth of equipment to maintain and upgrade its HAWK air defense systems.
The deal is being paid for by US military aid for Ukraine that was included in the US’s annual military spending bill, which President Biden signed into law last month. The bill gave Ukraine $300 million in Foreign Military Financing, a State Department program that gives foreign governments money to buy US-made weapons.
The deal for the HAWK air defense systems comes as Russia is stepping up its missile and drone strikes against infrastructure across Ukraine. Russia’s strikes have been much more effective as Moscow has better intelligence and is finding gaps in Ukraine’s air defense systems, which have been significantly depleted.
President Biden is still struggling to secure the $60 billion he is seeking to fund the proxy war in Ukraine for another year. The Senate has passed a $95 billion foreign military aid bill that includes funding for Ukraine, but it’s been held up in the House.
In a desperate move to get more weapons to Ukraine, the Biden administration announced a new $300 million weapons package last month that was taken directly from US stockpiles. The administration had previously said it was out of money for such transfers but claimed it found the money in US Army budget savings.
The $300 million package includes more cluster bombs, which are notorious for killing and maiming civilians. Due to their indiscriminate nature, cluster bombs are banned by more than 100 countries, but President Biden began pouring them into Ukraine last year.
Source: AntiWar.
