Biden administration announces new aid for Ukraine during Zelensky visit

By Washington Examiner - Mike Brest, Sept. 21, 2023, 03:13 PM

The Biden administration announced a new round of military aid for Ukraine as President Volodymyr Zelensky visits Washington, D.C., and meets with top United States government officials.

The assistance, announced on Thursday, will include weapons such as air defense systems, artillery ammunition, anti-armor capabilities, Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System rockets for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, and Javelin anti-tank missiles. It will also include controversial cluster munitions, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan confirmed.

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These munitions, which the U.S. provided once before in July, are a specific type of munition that pose such risks to civilians that more than a hundred countries, though not the U.S., Ukraine, or Russia, have banned the use, production, transfer, and stockpiling of them. The munitions carry submunitions within it, and when they get near a target, the munition detonates, sending the submunitions over a much larger area. Any unexploded ordinance essentially becomes landmines, posing a threat to civilians for years after a conflict ends.

The Biden administration opted against including long-range missiles known as Army Tactical Missile Systems, or ATACMS, which Ukraine has requested for months. These would give Ukraine the ability to strike targets within Russian-occupied Crimea and other Russian territory, and the U.S. has attempted to avoid giving Ukraine that ability to prevent an unintended escalation in the war.

White House officials have said in recent days that ATACMS are not off the table even though they weren't included in this aid package.

Zelensky's trip to the United States, which began earlier this week with the United Nations General Assembly, comes as a growing number of Republicans voice their opposition to arming Ukraine any further.

The Ukrainian president visited Congress, the Pentagon, and the White House on Thursday, where he met with a number of congressional leaders, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and President Joe Biden. White House and Pentagon officials have repeatedly said they will continue to support Ukraine despite criticism from a faction within the GOP.

By Washington Examiner - Mike Brest