U.S. to send Ukraine $1B more in weapons

FILE - U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Cody Brown, right, with the 436th Aerial Port Squadron, checks pallets of 155 mm shells ultimately bound for Ukraine, April 29, 2022, at Dover Air Force Base, Del. The Biden administration has announced another $1 billion in new military aid for Ukraine. The Aug. 8 pledge promises what will be the biggest yet delivery of rockets, ammunition and other arms straight from Department of Defense stocks for Ukrainian forces. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
FILE - U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Cody Brown, right, with the 436th Aerial Port Squadron, checks pallets of 155 mm shells ultimately bound for Ukraine, April 29, 2022, at Dover Air Force Base, Del. The Biden administration has announced another $1 billion in new military aid for Ukraine. The Aug. 8 pledge promises what will be the biggest yet delivery of rockets, ammunition and other arms straight from Department of Defense stocks for Ukrainian forces. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

WASHINGTON -- The Biden administration said Monday that it was shipping its biggest yet direct delivery of weapons to Ukraine as that country prepares for a potentially decisive counteroffensive in the south against Russia, sending $1 billion in rockets, ammunition and other materiel to Ukraine from Defense Department stockpiles.

The new U.S. arms shipment would further strengthen Ukraine as it mounts the counteroffensive, which analysts say for the first time could allow Kyiv to shape the course of the rest of the war, now at the half-year mark.

Kyiv aims to push Russian troops back out of Kherson and other southern territory near the Dnieper River. Russia in recent days was moving troops and equipment in the direction of the southern port cities to stave off the Ukrainian counteroffensive.


"At every stage of this conflict, we have been focused on getting the Ukrainians what they need, depending on the evolving conditions on the battlefield," Colin Kahl, undersecretary of defense for policy, said Monday in announcing the new weapons shipment.

The new U.S. aid includes additional rockets for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, as well as thousands of artillery rounds, mortar systems, Javelins and other ammunition and equipment. Military commanders and other U.S. officials say the HIMARS and artillery systems have been crucial in Ukraine's fight to block Russia from taking more ground.

While the U.S. has already provided 16 HIMARS to Ukraine, Kahl said the new package does not include additional ones.


"These are not systems that we assess you need in the hundreds to have the type of effects" needed, Kahl said. "These are precision-guided systems for very particular types of targets and the Ukrainians are using them as such."

He declined to say how many of the precision-guided missile systems for the HIMARS were included in Monday's announcement, but said the U.S. has provided "multiple hundreds" of them in recent weeks.

The latest announcement brings the total U.S. security assistance committed to Ukraine by the Biden administration to more than $9 billion.

In his nightly video address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked the United States for the package, and said "100% of it we will use to protect freedom, our common freedom."

Until now, the largest single security assistance package announcement was for $1 billion on June 15. But that aid included $350 million in presidential drawdown authority, and another $650 million under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which provides funding for training, equipment and other security needs that can be bought from other countries or companies.

Monday's package allows the U.S. to deliver weapons systems and other equipment more quickly since it takes them off the Defense Department shelves.

In addition to the rockets for the HIMARS, it includes 75,000 rounds of 155mm artillery, 20 mortar systems and 20,000 rounds for them, 1,000 shoulder-mounted Javelin rockets and other arms, explosives and medical equipment.

For the last four months of the war, Russia has concentrated on capturing the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, where pro-Moscow separatists have controlled some territory as self-proclaimed republics for eight years. Russian forces have made gradual headway in the region while launching missile and rocket attacks to curtail the movements of Ukrainian fighters elsewhere.

Kahl estimated that Russian forces have sustained up to 80,000 deaths and injuries in the fighting, though he did not break down the figure with an estimate of forces killed.

He said the Russian troops have managed to gain "incremental" ground in eastern Ukraine, although not in recent weeks. "But that has come at extraordinary cost to the Russian military because of how well the Ukrainian military has performed and all the assistance that the Ukrainian military has gotten. And I think now, conditions in the east have essentially stabilized and the focus is really shifting to the south."

The new funding is being paid for through $40 billion in economic and security aid for Ukraine approved by Congress in May.

This is the 18th time the Pentagon has provided equipment from Defense Department stocks to Ukraine since August 2021.

The U.S. and allies still are evaluating whether to supply aircraft to Ukraine, Kahl said. It's "not inconceivable that western aircraft down the road could be part of the mix," he said.

TARGETING THE DONBAS

Russian forces struck areas in Ukraine's east and south over the weekend, local officials said, as signs mounted that both sides were readying for a counteroffensive in the southern part of the country.


After seizing the bulk of Ukraine's eastern Luhansk region early last month, Russia has concentrated its efforts on capturing the neighboring region of Donetsk. Together, the two areas make up the Donbas region.

Some analysts have said that Russia's campaign in the Donbas has to some degree tapered off in recent weeks. Much remains unclear, but the change seems to be partly a result of the emergence on the battlefield of U.S. long-range rocket-launching systems and Ukrainian attacks around the southern city of Kherson. But Russian shelling has still been taking a heavy toll.

"The situation in Donbas remains very difficult," Zelenskyy said in his nightly address Sunday, adding that the bulk of Ukraine's efforts was focused on the fighting in the "hot areas" of Donetsk, which has cost "many lives."

Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of the regional military administration in Donetsk, wrote on Telegram on Monday that Russian forces had killed five civilians and injured 17 a day earlier.

According to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based research organization, Russian forces most likely made "incremental" advances in settlements near the regional center of Donetsk on Sunday.

Neighboring Luhansk also came under fire. The head of the regional military administration there, Serhiy Haidai, said Russian forces had launched a series of attacks with missiles, airstrikes, mortars and tank troops Sunday night.

"Each of these attempts is a few more damaged houses, broken destinies and hopes of our compatriots," he wrote on Facebook.

In the northeast of Ukraine, Russian forces continued to strike the city of Kharkiv. Ihor Terekhov, the city's mayor, reported at least seven explosions early Sunday and said that an infrastructure facility had been hit.

Shelling continued Monday morning, he wrote in a Telegram post, killing one civilian and damaging several homes.

"There is definitely no military infrastructure in this peaceful and densely populated area," he wrote, as the local military administration urged residents to remain in shelters.

In the south, Ukrainian forces have been setting the stage for a counteroffensive against Russian forces for weeks.

Britain's Ministry of Defense said over the weekend that Russian forces were "almost certainly massing in the south in anticipation of Ukraine's counteroffensive or in preparation for a possible assault," citing "long convoys of Russian military trucks, tanks, towed artillery and other weapons" moving away from the Donbas and heading for Ukraine's southwest.

Russian forces continued to undertake defensive measures to divert Ukrainian strikes and prepare defensive positions before Ukraine's counteroffensive, the Institute for the Study of War said in its Sunday analysis.

Yaroslav Yanushkevych, head of the Kherson regional administration, wrote on Telegram that Russian forces were mining critical infrastructure throughout the Kherson region, including gas, electricity and water supplies before the Ukrainian counteroffensive.

"The Russians are preparing for a strategy of terror and scorched earth," he wrote.

His claims could not be independently verified.

Natalia Humeniuk, a spokeswoman for Ukraine's southern forces, said Monday morning on a broadcast that Ukrainian forces had "quite seriously" hit two bridges over the Dnieper River that connect the Russian-controlled territory around the city of Kherson to the rest of the country. The Ukrainians have said they intended to blow up bridges on the river to cut the Russians' lines of supply and retreat.

Zelenskyy early in the war made near-daily appeals for warplanes, calling them essential to protecting Ukraine's skies. The U.S. and some other NATO countries feared that could draw them into more direct involvement with Ukraine's war against Russia, and have not provided Western aircraft.

Separately Monday, the Treasury Department said it was sending $3 billion more in direct economic assistance to Ukraine. That's part of a previously approved $7.5 billion in economic assistance, with $1.5 billion yet to be disbursed.

TRADING BLAME

Russia and Ukraine traded accusations Monday that each side is shelling Europe's biggest nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine. Russia claimed that Ukrainian shelling caused a power surge and fire and forced staff to lower output from two reactors, while Ukraine has blamed Russian troops for storing weapons there.

Nuclear experts have warned that more shelling of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, which was captured by Russia early in the war, is fraught with danger.

The Kremlin echoed that Monday, claiming that Kyiv was attacking the plant and urging Western powers to force a stop to that.

"Shelling of the territory of the nuclear plant by the Ukrainian armed forces is highly dangerous," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. "It's fraught with catastrophic consequences for vast territories, for the entire Europe."

Ukraine's military intelligence spokesman, Andriy Yusov, countered that Russian forces have planted explosives at the plant to head off an expected Ukrainian counteroffensive in the region. Previously, Ukrainian officials have said Russia is launching attacks from the plant and using Ukrainian workers there as human shields.

Yusov called on Russia to "make a goodwill gesture and hand over control of the plant to an international commission and the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), if not to the Ukrainian military."

Ukraine's ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, likewise urged that the United Nations, the IAEA and the international community send a delegation to "completely demilitarize the territory" and provide security guarantees to plant employees and the city where the plant is based, Enerhodar.

The IAEA is the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog. Its director-general, Rafael Grossi, told The Associated Press last week that the situation surrounding the Zaporizhzhia plant "is completely out of control," and issued an urgent plea to Russia and Ukraine to allow experts to visit the complex to stabilize the situation and avoid a nuclear accident.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres voiced support for that idea Monday, saying, "any attack to a nuclear plant is a suicidal thing."

One expert in nuclear materials at Imperial College London said the reactor at Zaporizhzhia is modern and housed inside a heavily reinforced steel-and-concrete building designed to protect against disasters.

"As such, I do not believe there would be a high probably of a breach of the containment building, even if it was accidentally struck by an explosive shell, and even less likely the reactor itself could be damaged," said Mark Wenman at the college's Nuclear Energy Futures.

He also said the complex's spent fuel tanks, where the shells reportedly hit, are strong and probably don't contain much spent fuel.

"Although it may seem worrying, and any fighting on a nuclear site would be illegal according to international law, the likelihood of a serious nuclear release is still small," he said.

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Lt. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said the attack Sunday caused a power surge and smoke, triggering an emergency shutdown. Fire teams extinguished flames, and the plant's personnel lowered the output of reactors No. 5 and No. 6 to 500 megawatts, he said.

And the head of the Ukrainian company operating the plant said all but one power line connecting it to Ukraine's energy system had been destroyed. Petro Kotin, head of the Ukrainian state corporation Eherhoatom, blamed Russian shelling and said a blackout would be "very unsafe for such a nuclear facility."

The Ukrainian president decried "the shelling and mining" of the plant and called it "nuclear blackmail." He called for sanctions against Moscow's nuclear industry.

Information for this article was contributed by Ellen Knickmeyer, Lolita C. Baldor, Eric Tucker, Fatima Hussein, Susie Blann, Karem Chehayeb, Mehmet Guzel and Andrew Wilks of The Associated Press and by Emma Bubola of The New York Times.

  photo  FILE - Pallets of 155 mm shells ultimately bound for Ukraine are loaded by the 436th Aerial Port Squadron, Friday, April 29, 2022, at Dover Air Force Base, Del. President Joe Biden asked Congress on Thursday for $33 billion to bolster Ukraine's fight against Russia, signaling a burgeoning and long-haul American commitment. The Biden administration has announced another $1 billion in new military aid for Ukraine. The Aug. 8 pledge promises what will be the biggest yet delivery of rockets, ammunition and other arms straight from Department of Defense stocks for Ukrainian forces. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
 
 



 Gallery: Images from Ukraine, month 6



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