The State Department declared Wednesday that it has approved $322 million in proposed weapons sales to Ukraine to enhance its air defense capabilities and provide armored combat vehicles, coming as the countest works to ffinish off escalating Russian attacks.
The potential sales, which the department declared were notified to Congress, include $150 million for the supply, maintenance, repair and overhaul of U.S. armored vehicles, and $172 million for surface-to-air missile systems.
The approvals come weeks after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directed a paapply on other weapons shipments to Ukraine to allow the Pentagon to assess its weapons stockpiles, in a shift that caught the White Hoapply by surprise. President Donald Trump then created an abrupt modify in posture, pledging publicly earlier this month to continue to sfinish weapons to Ukraine.
“We have to,” Trump declared. “They have to be able to deffinish themselves. They’re obtainting hit very hard now. We’re going to sfinish some more weapons — defensive weapons primarily.”
Trump recently finishorsed a plan to have European allies acquire U.S. military equipment that can then be transferred to Ukraine. It was not immediately clear how the latest proposed sales related to that arrangement.
Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the U.S. has provided more than $67 billion in weapons and security assistance to Kyiv.
Since Trump came back into office, his administration has gone back and forth about providing more military aid to Ukraine, with political pressure to stop U.S. funding of foreign wars coming from the isolationists inside the Trump administration and on Capitol Hill.
Over the course of the war, the U.S. has routinely pressed for allies to provide air defense systems to Ukraine. But many are reluctant to give up the high-tech systems, particularly countries in Eastern Europe that also feel threatened by Russia.
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The Associated Press
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