Biden Follows UK, Czechia, Germany, in Escalating Ukrainian Arms Shipments

U.S. Marines with Alpha Battery, 1st Battalion, 12th Marines fire the M777-A2 Howitzer down range during Integrated Training Exercise 2-15 at Blacktop Training Area aboard Camp Wilson, Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms, Calif., Jan. 31st, 2015. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Aaron S. Patterson/Released)

Over the last two weeks, NATO countries including Czechia, the UK, and Germany, have announced plans for shipments of heavier armaments to Ukraine. Now the Biden administration has announced a similar ramping up of weapons transfers. The new transfers amount to $800 million in aid. Deputy national security editor at the Washington Post, Andrew deGrandpré, tweeted a list of the equipment:

Here you go –>

Pentagon’s full run down of $800 million in new security assistance to Ukraine pic.twitter.com/7KlEz3Qs2k

— Andrew deGrandpré (@adegrandpre) April 13, 2022

The Wall Street Journal reports on the increase in aid:

The Biden administration is moving to significantly expand the intelligence it is providing to Ukraine’s forces so they can target Moscow’s military units in Russian-occupied Donbas and Crimea, part of a shift in U.S. support that also includes a new security assistance package with heavier weaponry.

The new intelligence guidance comes as the White House said that it will send $800 million in additional weapons to Kyiv, including artillery, armored personnel carriers and helicopters, to help Ukrainian forces hold off a major Russian offensive in the eastern part of the country that is expected to unfold in coming days.

The decision to share more intelligence and provide artillery marks a shift in the Biden’s administration’s approach to the conflict, and comes after weeks of Kyiv asking the U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies to provide tanks, aircraft and other heavy weaponry to push back Russia, which invaded Ukraine in February.

Russia is redeploying troops to southern and eastern Ukraine, where it made early gains in the first weeks of the invasion. Ukraine has used the lull in fighting to boost appeals to the West for more weapons and sanctions on Russia.

The Biden administration has already provided thousands of Javelin antitank weapons, Stinger antiaircraft systems and other battlefield arms. The administration, however, has drawn the line at sending Ukraine combat aircraft, which the White House fears could lead Russia to consider Washington as a belligerent in the conflict. Nor has it agreed to Ukraine’s appeals that the U.S. and NATO nations establish a no-fly zone over the country.

But Moscow’s military strategy has shifted recently, with Russian forces pulling back from around the Ukrainian capital and other cities in the north to focus on an expected offensive in Donbas and other areas in eastern Ukraine.

That change contributed to the administration’s decision late last week to step up intelligence sharing to help Kyiv’s forces better identify how the Russian military plans to attack and to enable the Ukrainians to respond with artillery, drone attacks and other weapons in occupied parts of the country.