Yesterday the Biden administration announced its last military aid package for Ukraine for 2023. “This package provides up to $250 million of arms and equipment under previously directed drawdowns for Ukraine,” the State Department press release said. “Capabilities provided in today’s package include air defense munitions, other air defense system components, additional ammunition for high mobility artillery rocket systems, 155mm and 105mm artillery ammunition, anti-armor munitions, and over 15 million rounds of ammunition.”
“Security assistance for Ukraine is a smart investment in our national security,” the Pentagon claimed in its own statement yesterday. “It deters potential aggression elsewhere in the world, while strengthening our defense industrial base and creating highly skilled jobs for the American people.” The munitions and other matériel will be provided from Pentagon stocks.
Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Anatoly Antonov characterized the announcement as “a bloody New Year’s gift to Kiev,” in a Dec. 27 statement, in both Russian and English, posted on the embassy’s Telegram channel. The statement concluded: “New arms supplies cannot change the situation ‘on the ground’. Not a single terrorist attack by the Ukrainian Armed Forces with Western weapons use will remain without a decisive response. {{All NATO equipment and ammunition are going to be burned and destroyed. It’s time for the Americans to abandon illusory projects to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia.” (Emphasis in the original.)
