The U.S. government announced an additional $800 million in military aid to Ukraine on Wednesday, expanding the scope of military equipment provided.
U.S. President Joe Biden announced the aid package, which includes heavy artillery ahead of an expected wider Russian assault on eastern Ukraine.
The package brings the total military aid to Ukraine up to more than $2.5 billion and includes artillery systems, rounds of artillery, armored vehicles, and unmanned coastal defense boats. Also approved now is the transfer of additional helicopters.
Biden told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky about the new aid package in a phone call, and then released a statement detailing it.
Biden said that equipment provided to Ukraine has been “critical.” We cannot rest now, Biden said in a written statement, and that he assured Zelensky that the American people will continue to stand with Ukraine in its fight for freedom.
The news of additional aid came before news that a Russian warship was “seriously damaged” after an ammunition explosion. The Russian defense ministry said the entire crew of a warship, Moskva, has been evacuated after an ammunition explosion and fire.
However, the governor of Ukraine’s Odesa region, Maksym Marchenko, said that actually the boat was struck by two Ukrainian missiles in the Black Sea late on Wednesday night.
The boat is famous because it was defied by Ukrainian troops on Snake Island at the beginning of the war, and is famous to Russia because it is the flagship of its Black Sea fleet.
News has also broken this week that Finland and Sweden may join NATO. Russia warned that if this happens, it will take measures in the Baltic.
But Lithuania’s prime minister Ingrida Simonyte dismissed the threats as “nothing new,” and said that Russia has always kept nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad anyway.
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