WASHINGTON — The United States will send Ukraine another $400 million in military aid and a security assistance headquarters in Germany that will oversee all arms transfers and military education for Ukraine, the Pentagon said Friday.
The $400 million aid includes investment for more air defenses to better protect Ukraine against escalating Russian missile and drone attacks that have severely damaged the country’s energy and water infrastructure.
The United States has poured more than $18. 2 billion worth of weapons and other gadgets into Ukraine since the war began Feb. 24.
“We recognize the great need for air defense at this critical time when Russia and Russian forces are raining Iranian missiles and drones on this country’s civilian infrastructure,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said at a news conference in Kiev on Friday. President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Sullivan is one of the top high-level U. S. officials to stop in Kyiv and had not previously been announced for security reasons.
The $400 million aid also includes contracts for 1,100 Phoenix Ghost drones, investments to renovate forty-five tanks and 40 more riverboats.
The Phoenix Ghost drone is an armed “kamikaze drone” that explodes upon touching its target.
The T-72 tanks are removed from the existing stock of the defense industry in the Czech Republic, paid for through the Netherlands, and will be supplied with complex optics, communications and armor. They are part of an overall set of 90 T-72 tanks that will be shipped to Ukraine through 2023, the Pentagon said.
Additional air defense in opposition to drones will be provided through Hawk surface-to-air anti-aircraft missiles to be refurbished and to Ukraine.
The missile formula is no longer used in the United States, but the missiles, once refurbished, will give Ukraine some other medium-diversity air defense option, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said. Hawk missiles have a longer diversity than Stinger anti-aircraft missiles. The United States supplied in the past.
However, since the weapons are purchased under the Security Assistance Initiative for Ukraine, they will not be in a position to move quickly to Kiev. Weapons provided through the initiative’s investment are received through longer-term commercial contracts rather than from U. S. weapons. UU reservations
The new command post, the Security Assistance Group of Ukraine, signals a more permanent and long-term program to continue Kyiv in its fight against Russia, Singh said.
The new post overseeing aid will be headed by a senior three-star officer and will have about three hundred people based in Germany who will oversee weapons education and assistance programs, said Col. Martin O’Donnell, a spokesman for the U. S. Army. USA in Europe.
The Ukraine Security Assistance Group is being established as the U. S. Security Assistance Group is being established. UU. se focuses on long-term efforts to take responsibility for the billions of dollars in U. S. weaponry that have arrived in Ukraine and make sure they don’t fall into Russia’s hands.
The State Department plan unveiled last week includes on-the-ground surveillance through U. S. military personnel. “The U. S. Navy, Pentagon spokesman Gen. Pat Ryder said this week.
“When and where security situations permit, a small team of the U. S. Embassy will not be able to do so. The U. S. Department of State in Kyiv, from the defense attaché’s workplace, has conducted several inspections of U. S. security assistance deliveries. “I’ve been working in the U. S. for the past two months at sites in Ukraine,” Ryder said. they are nowhere near the front line of Russia’s war against Ukraine. “
‘ENERGY TERRORISM’
Zelenskyy accused Russia of engaging in “energy terrorism” after Russian measures on Ukraine’s power grid left millions of electricity.
About 4. 5 million more people were without power across the country, Zelenskyy said in his late-night speech. Kiev Mayor Vitaly Klitschko said 450,000 apartments in the capital were without power on Friday.
“I appeal to the entire population of the capital: save as much electricity as possible, because it is still difficult!”Public network operator Ukrenergo announced on Friday that emergency power outages would occur across Kyiv.
Russia has carried out missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian force facilities, especially in recent weeks. In his speech, Zelenskyy described the attack on the force’s infrastructure as a sign of weakness.
“The very fact that Russia resorts to proxy terrorism shows the weakness of our enemy,” he said. “They can’t beat Ukraine on the battlefield, so they seek to defeat our other people that way. “
Zelenskyy spoke shortly after Moscow-appointed officials in Ukraine’s occupied Kherson region said Russian troops would likely leave the town of Kherson, a claim Ukrainian officials met with some skepticism.
The Kremlin-installed regional administration has already pulled tens of thousands of civilians out of the city, raising the risk of further bombardment as the Ukrainian military continues a counteroffensive to retake the area. Authorities on Thursday got rid of Kherson’s Russian flag. Management building.
Southern Ukrainian army spokeswoman Natalia Humeniuk said cutting the flag may be just a ruse “and we are not rushing to celebrate. “He said on Ukrainian television that some Russian servicemen disguise themselves as civilians.
Claims in none of the aspects can be independently verified.
Elsewhere, Ukrainian officials reported shooting down drones introduced by Russian forces: eight drones in the Nikopol region, which are also subject to artillery shelling, and a few other drones in the western Lviv region.
The commander of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Valeriy Zaluzhny, said Russian forces had “tripled the intensity of hostilities in some spaces of the front” and were carrying out “up to 80 attacks per day. “
Zelenskyy reported Friday that at least nine civilians were killed and 16 wounded in attacks in Ukraine in the past 24 hours.
The Russian army attacked 4 cities near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant with drones and heavy artillery. The governor of Dnipropetrovsk province said Friday that houses, cars and a fuel line in Chervonohryhorivka broke overnight, and the city had no electricity.
In the eastern province of Donetsk, the city of Pokrovsk was hardest hit, with rocket attacks damaging a school and at least 22 residential buildings, killing one civilian and wounding six others.
Donetsk provincial governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said 12 towns and villages had been bombed, adding that Bakhmut and Avdiivka have been hit hard in recent weeks.
In the occupied Kherson region, the Ukrainian army bombed Russian bases and logistics facilities, destroying two ammunition warehouses, the Ukrainian army said.
Russia illegally annexed the Ukrainian regions of Kherson, Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia at the end of September and declared martial law in all 4 provinces.
KNOWING OBJECTIVES
In Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that a group of volunteers was still missing to join the Russian army, with another 318,000 people already mobilized. Officials had said in the past that the goal was to mobilize about 300,000 reservists.
Putin said another 49,000 people are already in the army and are fulfilling combat missions, while the rest are still being trained. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Tuesday that 87,000 troops were deployed to Ukraine. The gap may not be resolved immediately.
When Russia announced the mobilization in September, protests erupted in several regions and tens of thousands of Russians fled the country.
Putin also signed a law on Friday allowing military mobilization of those convicted of certain serious crimes, adding to those who recently served sentences for murder, robbery and drug trafficking.
The Russian military said it hit a rocket engine factory in the city of Pavlohrad in Dnipropetrovsk province, as well as a plant that generates rockets for various rocket launch systems in the northeastern city of Kharkiv. Ukraine has shown the attacks.
In the Black Sea, the Ukrainian armed forces said that “the operation of grain corridors continues” according to the plan. Russia agreed on Wednesday to sign a war deal negotiated through the United Nations and Turkey that allows Ukrainian grain to be shipped to global markets. Moscow had suspended its participation in the grain deal over the weekend, bringing to light an alleged drone attack on its Black Sea fleet in Crimea.
As a condition for returning to the agreement, Russia demanded that grain be sent to poorer countries, arguing that most of it went to richer countries. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday he discussed the factor of prioritizing less evolved countries. for grain shipments in a call with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
In a recent call with Putin, Erdogan said he had also discussed sending loose grain to countries facing famine and that the two leaders planned to continue discussions on the issue at a Group of 20 assembly in Bali this month.
Information for this article provided through Tara Copp, Andrew Meldrum and Suzan Fraser of The Associated Press.
Gallery: Images of Ukraine and Russia, month 9