The U.S. Department of Defense announced a new $150 million military aid package for Ukraine. The package includes “training, equipment, and advisory efforts to help Ukraine’s forces preserve the country’s territorial integrity, secure its borders, and improve interoperability with NATO. The equipment in the package includes systems to counter unmanned aerial systems, secure communications technology and two counter-artillery radar systems.
The new package complements $125 million in military aid Defense Department announced for Ukraine in March that included armed Mark VI patrol boats, counter-artillery radars, tactical equipment, support for a satellite imagery and analysis capability, and equipment to support military medical treatment and combat evacuation procedures. The United States has committed more than $2.5 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since 2014.
The security assistance used to help Ukraine better defend itself against Russian aggression and funded through foreign military financing with the State Department — will fund “counter-artillery radars, counter-unmanned aerial systems, secure communications gear, electronic warfare and military medical evacuation equipment, and training and equipment to improve the operational safety and capacity of Ukrainian Air Force bases.
The program gained international attention after the Trump administration in 2019 froze the assistance. The move led to former President Trump’s impeachment in December 2019, as Democrats said he used the freeze as leverage to force Kyiv to politically damage then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. Trump administration officials claimed that corruption in Ukraine was justification for halting the money. A Government Accountability Office review later found that the administration broke the law in withholding the aidkrine
