United States President Joe Biden is expected to announce the country's largest weapons and aid package yet for Ukraine on Wednesday, with a funding of $3 billion and training of personnel being included.
The additional funding would push total U.S. aid well past the annual budgets of at least eight federal programs, including the entire judicial branch. The announcement, which is timed for the 41st anniversary of Ukrainian independence, would arrive just five days after the previous one unveiled a $775 million weapons package.
$3 Billion Military Aid
The recent aid includes advanced missiles, armored vehicles, and artillery to help Ukraine fight Russia's military forces. However, while the weapons for Friday's package will be drawn from U.S. stockpiles, items for the upcoming set will be purchased or ordered from industry, a senior defense official said.
The soon-to-be-announced package will be the largest single chunk of the total $13.7 billion that the U.S. has announced since the beginning of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The aid includes ammunition in amounts "we've never seen before" in the effort to help Ukraine defend itself against Moscow, as per Defense One.
The total aid to Ukraine has already surpassed the annual budget of some federal programs, including the National Science Foundation ($9.2 billion) and the Small Business Administration ($1.7 billion). It is also larger than the annual budgets of the federal judiciary ($9.7 billion), Congress ($6.6 billion), or the Executive Office of the President ($0.6 billion).
The most recent aid funding will push 2023 defense spending toward the $1 trillion mark, said Larry Korb, a defense budget expert with the Center for American Progress. After Biden requested $813 billion, Congress decided to raise that amount to account for inflation and other projects.
According to Reuters, since Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, which Russian President Vladimir Putin termed a "special military operation" to demilitarize Ukraine, the conflict has settled into a war of attrition fought primarily in eastern and southern Ukraine.
Russia's Invasion of Ukraine
On top of the U.S. aid package, Germany plans to deliver arms, including air-defense systems, rocket launchers, and precision munitions, to Ukraine worth over $500 million, by 2023. Russia is trying to gain control of the largely Russian-speaking Donbas region, comprising Luhansk and Donetsk provinces, where pro-Moscow separatists seized territory after the Kremlin annexed Crimea to the south in 2014.
However, Ukraine has accused Russia of an imperial-style war to retake a pro-Western neighbor that shook off Russian domination when the Soviet Union broke up in 1991. A sense of an eerie calm before the storm grew on Tuesday as the U.S. Embassy told its citizens to leave Ukraine because of fears of possible Russian missile strikes.
On Wednesday, the Russian invasion of Ukraine will have lasted for six months and is the same day as Ukraine's Independence Day. On top of providing military support such as weapons and training for Ukraine, the new package will reportedly focus on bolstering the country's security infrastructure to a new level, Fox News reported.
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