The U.S. agrees to send longer-range weapons to Ukraine
The Ukrainians feel that if they could get their hands on long range western weapons, they could deteriorate the Russian Army’s ability to defend the territories they invaded. The Ukrainians have been persistent with their requests for these weapons. However, the US and other NATO countries were hesitant for fears that these weapons would be used to strike targets inside Russia itself. The Ukrainian side is ready to offer guarantees that they would not hit Russia with these weapons.
From the Military Times:
The U.S. will provide ground-launched small diameter bombs as part of a $2.17 billion aid package it is expected to announce Friday, several U.S. officials said. The package also for the first time includes equipment to connect all the different air defense systems Western allies have rushed to the battlefield and integrate them into Ukraine’s own air defenses, to help it better defend against Russia’s missile attacks.
For months, U.S. officials have hesitated to send longer-range systems to Ukraine out of concern that they would be used to target inside Russia, escalating the conflict and drawing the U.S. deeper in. The longer-range bombs are the latest advanced system, such as Abrams tanks and the Patriot missile defense system, that the U.S. has eventually agreed to provide Ukraine after initially saying no. U.S. officials, though, have continued to reject Ukraine’s requests for fighter jets.
Ukrainian leaders have urgently pressed for longer-range munitions, and on Thursday officials said the U.S. will send an undisclosed number of the ground-launched, small diameter bombs, which have a range of about 95 miles (150 kilometers). The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details of the aid package not yet made public.
To date, the longest-range missile provided by the U.S. is about 50 miles (80 kilometers). The funding in the aid package is for longer-term purchases, so it wasn’t clear Thursday how long it will take to get the bomb to the battlefield in Ukraine.
Ukraine’s defense minister, Oleksii Reznikov, said Thursday the country is prepared to offer guarantees to its Western partners that their weapons won’t be used to strike inside Russian territory, adding that Kyiv needs weapons with a range of up to 300 kilometers ( about 185 miles) to expel the Russian forces.
“If we could strike at a distance of up to 300 kilometers, the Russian army wouldn’t be able to mount a defense and will have to withdraw,” Reznikov said at a meeting with EU officials. “Ukraine is ready to provide any guarantees that your weapons will not be involved in attacks on the Russian territory. We have enough targets in the occupied areas of Ukraine, and we’re prepared to coordinate on (these) targets with our partners.”
The U.S. aid package includes $425 million in ammunition and support equipment that will be pulled from existing Pentagon stockpiles and $1.75 billion in new funding through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which is used to purchase new weapons from industry.
The assistance initiative, which will pay for the longer-range bombs and the air defense system integration, also funds two HAWK air defense systems, anti-aircraft guns and ammunition, and counter-drone systems.
The Military Times has more on this story.
So utterly frustrated with this. Let Ukraine and Russia duke it out. There are no vital interests there. Yet we give money and supplies (both supported by taxes paid by Americans), and to what end? Russia is going to declare victory eventually. Russia is no threat to us. Just stop.
1994 Ukraine had the worlds 3rd largest nuclear arsenal. USA, Britian and Russia negotiated it away by guaranteeing Ukraines borders. Subsequently Ukraine gave up a good part of its conventional weapons.
Now so called conservatives would abandon Ukraine and allow Putin to complete his stated goal of eliminating Ukraine as a country and Ukrainians as a people. Step 1 in restoring the great and glorious Russian Empire.
Does the USA have any credibility left as it is?
Oh great, the Zelenskyy bot is back again for another Ukraine article
Oh great .. difference of opinion is not allowed.
A fine example of if you can’t attack the message, attack the messenger
…and for crying out loud.. look up ‘bot’.. I would be a TROLL not a bot
Ok Komrade Kommissar, you can drop the mask now.
Come out, come out, wherever you are….
Oh good.. personal attack.. you lose the argument
*correction* troll……
Thank you
You are going to have to show me where we guaranteed Ukraine’s borders. I have not been able to find that.
The Budapest Momorandum?
No, the document nowhere says that. It says all parties will respect the borders and Russia signed it. Russia now says that is null and void because that was the old Russia.
Ukraine did not have any ownership/codes/authority of those weapons, Russia did. Second, since when is it the US is obligated to Ukraine or any other country to defend it without reciprocating support? Ukraine is not part of NATO. Third, Russia has shown that they would have no chance against a legitimate military force like the UK or Germany, much less the US. Finally, you seem to argue that if the US does nothing, the US will have no credibility. This is a straw man argument, and can thusly be disregarded as preening or signaling. PS I hope Ukraine collapses quickly and gets absorbed by Russia before we start sending over “military observers”.
We have a Chinese Spy Balloon currently over our airspace, and the current Administration seems to keep pushing more weapons into Ukraine to escalate the conflict.
Priorities!
Along with leaving our Southern Border as porous as possible letting illegal aliens in en masse as well as making it a huge drug pipeline!
No sitting President has ever lost re-election during an ongoing war (arguable exception for 2020). There’s potentially immense benefit in escalation for the Biden regime.
NOT strike targets inside Russia? Guarantees? Zelensky? Seriously?
ROFLOLMFAO!
Yeah. I got a chuckle out of that, too.
Russia reduces Ukrainian cities to rubble… but Ukraine better not hit back or Putin will get REALLY mad
I could give a s#!t what the Ukrainians do to the Russians inside Russia. It is the hypocrisy of the promises that the Ukrainians won’t do it with the US munitions that is in question.
Seriously? Hypocrisy? Promises? Look up Budapest Memorandum
Plenty of Russia within reach of Ukrainian weapons right now.. THEY seem to be keeping THEIR promise.
There have been several explosions inside Russia IIRC, if these are due to Russian incompetence or the Ukrainian’s is still not entirely evident. If it was the Ukrainians, I can’t blame them for fighting back.
In my opinion there is plenty of blame to go around on this war, from NATO pushing to bring more countries into NATO, to the political corruption in Ukraine or the Russian invasion of Ukraine in spite of the agreements they had made with Ukraine years ago.
And don’t think when I typed hypocrisy and promises that I was only referring to Ukrainian politicians.
“Look up Budapest Memorandum”
I did–several times. Is that where you claim the US “guaranteed” Ukraine’s borders?
“Plenty of Russia within reach of Ukrainian weapons right now..”
Then they don’t need longer range weapons.
“Plenty of Russia in range” does not mean everything Ukraine would like to threaten is in range.
Goes right along with, “I won’t blank in your blank”.
Will those be shipped with complimentary classified documents from the Biden garage?
They’ll be copies from the Chinese docs from the Penn-Biden- Xi archives.
And here we are, being dragged further down the rabbit hole, and further depleting our stocks of munitions.
Shhh, you’re not supposed to notice that!
Can you say “Vietnam”?
I knew you could, boys and girls.
I was thinking that but probably for a different reason. While we were toiling away in South Vietnam, the Russians/Soviets were doing everything they could to screw with our efforts. Flying MIGs against us, interrogating/torturing our POW’s, providing advisors and equipment and weapons to kill us with, etc. Then in early 1969 they handed those efforts over to the Chinese, who did pretty much the same thing for their communist vassals in North Vietnam. So the more we help to kill Russians, the more I like it. Payback is a bitch.
And there you have it kiddies, Russia has hated us since we invaded after WWI. You would think 100 years would be enough to let it go but they have never stopped. Every conflict we have ever been in they have been on the other side of, accept the later part of WWII. So if the chickens are coming home to roost I say let them peck.
See I think that’s a lot of the Cold War mentality that keeps this going.
Putin is not a nice man. I don’t think you’ll get much disagreement on that here. However, he’s not a Communist.
The Communists are the ones that regularly compete with his party and hold the second most power in the Duma. Make no mistake about it, forcing Putin from power will not result in some Hollywood darling like Nalvany to come in and take power. More likely, what you’re going to get is another person of Purim’s ilk (like Medvedev) or worse someone like Zyugonav (Communist).
So what are we doing here for American interests? Stop Putin from taking Ukraine? Great I think that’s done by this point. Time to deploy the diplomats instead of more weapons.
Encouraging Zelenskyy to take Crimea or more of the far East made primarily of ethnic Russians? No. These areas were only included in any maps for Ukraine because Lenin needed to encourage divisions within the land to ensure Soviet control and Khrushchev wanted to pass a favor off to his buddies in Kiev (he’s from there).
Again, I know Russia is the aggressor. I don’t like what’s been done, but this is not something that we need to spark WW3 over and subsequently risk the lives of millions of Americans. Not when we have more more vital Americans interests currently at risk with a wide open border and Communist China threatening Taiwan and basically slapping us in the face right now with a giant frigging spy ballon sitting over the continental United States, and a weak, compromised, and ineffective administration currently in charge.
I know I have better things to do with my time than worry about Russians.
Hmmmm. Now where did I put those toenail clippers?
Now there’s a second Commie spy balloon over the US:
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pentagon-another-chinese-spy-balloon-traveling-over-latin-america
But pay no attention! China? Nah, that’s not the real immediate threat! Let’s keep funneling weapons to Ukraine and go get Russia!
Russia will always be trouble. But it is no longer the soviet union, just a dinky ass (compared to before) country of less than 200 million. With a shitty military and apparently unable to get their shit together about anything.
Oh, horseshit. My guess (just as good as your guess) is that most Russians don’t give a shit about the US–(aside from the ones that want to emigrate here) just as most Americans don’t give a shit about Russia. Most of us have better things to do than hate strangers several thousand miles away.
And, by the way, Russia is not the same as the USSR.
This isn’t about what “most people” care about. Russia may not be the USSR but they were paying bounties to kill our guys as late as 2019, and have come down opposite everything US the last 25 years so they may as well be.
“they were paying bounties…”
Another myth.
“have come down opposite everything US the last 25 years so”
And a bit of exaggeration.
It would be more accurate to say they were on their own side during WW2. And Soviet Russia was popular in Europe as a whole as a turd in a punchbowl. That is why Germany had no problem recruiting a bunch of SS divisions to fight them. They were supposed to come in the Pacific war alongside us and never did until like a week before it ended, and then enslaved a bunch of Japanese, and took two northern Japanese islands that they still hold onto today.
How much payback do you need? Our helping kill Russians in Afghanistan wasn’t enough?
Not even close. I would settle for all of them dead, but cannot get that. If they all croak, they cannot cause any more trouble.
All our adversaries are watching… let Russia destroy Ukraine and we will end up depleting a lot more than stocks of munitions
10% for the Big Guy.
Don’t forget the Senators and Congress weasels from both R and D and I platforms have or had hands in that U of Krane Cookie Jar plus their kids for a long while…Open the Books and Name Names!
That sort of thing started to be revealed when Trump was in there, but too many pussies got all rabid that he was not refined and gentlemanly enough for their delicate sensibilities.
Trump is a brash bastard, hell, that is a big part of why I voted for him.
Yep, but the fascist warmonger didn’t start any more wars. His foreign policy, by and large, was excellent.
At least he had good intentions (mostly). He was just out of his league, unfortunately. The big frog in the small pond comes to the big pond, and finds out the hard way he ain’t the big frog anymore.
I would go even farther and say he is a rude and crude braggart. And I, too, voted for him. And I may again, if the shitheads in the Republican party can’t find anyone better.
I am sick of this shit!! Every even numbered year, beginning in Feb-Mar and running through the first Monday after the first Sunday in Nov. we’ve been inundated with stories on the War on Women.
I guarantee if we stopped shipping weapons to You-crane and used them in the States, we would ultimately end up victorious this violent struggle against the EEEEEEE-vil XX carriers.
I think you are falling behind. Heard about Menstrual Awareness yet? Menstrual poverty?
Yes, to both. I am aware I have a deficit of pussy blood.
So, who is winning?
This is the accounting version of mission creep.
The MIC grins.