Ukraine To Receive New Patriot Air Defense System in $7.9BN US Package

The U.S. will provide Ukraine with an additional Patriot air defense battery as part of a new assistance package worth $7.9 billion.

President Joe Biden announced in a statement on Thursday that Ukraine would also get additional Patriot missiles, other air defense equipment and interceptors, drones, long-range missiles and air-to-ground munitions.

Biden said the military support was part of a package to “help Ukraine defend its cities and its people.”

The U.S. first agreed in October 2022 to send Kyiv the surface-to-air Patriot systems, which can target aircraft, cruise missiles and shorter-range ballistic missiles.

“I have directed the Department of Defense to allocate all of its remaining security assistance funding that has been appropriated for Ukraine by the end of my term in office,” Biden said in the statement.

There would be an expansion of training for Ukrainian F-16 pilots, an increase in security assistance, as well as measures to counter Russian sanctions evasion and money laundering by working with allies to disrupt a global cryptocurrency network, Biden added.

The aid also includes the first shipment of the Joint Standoff Weapon, a precision-guided glide bomb with a range of up to 81 miles that can be dropped from fighter jets. Biden added he would convene a leader-level meeting of Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Germany next month.

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked the Biden administration “for finding a way to allocate the remaining security assistance to Ukraine and ensure that the presidential authority is not expired by the end of the U.S. financial year.”

Zelensky also expressed gratitude to the U.S. for the expansion of F-16 training programs, as well the “strong sanctions measures imposed to further limit Russia’s ability to fund its aggression.”

Zelensky will present his “victory plan” to Biden, Congress and U.S. presidential candidates, and he says it will end the war started by Vladimir Putin.

The Ukrainian leader is likely to ask for significant increases in U.S. military aid, as well as for Washington to drop its prohibition against using American-supplied weapons to make long-range strikes into Russia.

“Ukraine will seek U.S. permission to strike deeper into Russian territory—a request that Washington has been reluctant to grant due to fears of escalation,” Leon Hartwell, senior associate at the London School of Economics’ think tank, LSE IDEAS, in the English capital told Newsweek.

“For Ukraine, however, these strikes are essential to weaken Russia’s war capabilities and to bring the war home to the Russian public, thereby increasing internal pressure on Putin to seek an end to the conflict,” Hartwell added.

Update 09/26/24, 7:43 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with further information.