The Biden Administration announced on Jan. 18 that it is providing an additional $200 million in military support to Ukraine. The announcement came as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Kyiv to meet with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky. He will meet with Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov in Geneva afterward
The move is in response Russia’s continued military build-up on Ukraine’s eastern flank. The Kremlin is also suspected as the source of recent cyber-attacks on several Ukrainian ministry websites. It also comes after Belarus announced that it would hold joint military exercises with Russia near Ukraine’s northern border
The White House had approved the additional military assistance in late December but had withheld a formal announcement so as not to antagonize the Kremlin in the run-up to recent talks among U.S., NATO, and Russian negotiating teams to attempt to resolve the latest crisis on Ukraine’s border. Those talks provided no breakthroughs that might draw down Russian troops and reduce the political temperature in the region.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki noted during her daily press briefing on January 18 that Russia is not showing any signs of backing down.
“We’re now at a stage where Russia could at any point launch an attack on Ukraine,“
said Psaki, according to an Associated Press story. “And what Secretary Blinken is going to do is highlight very clearly that there is a diplomatic path forward.
Andrii Zahorodniuk, a former Ukrainian minister of defense and currently chairman of the Center for Defense Strategies, in a recent article for the Atlantic Council enumerated a list of military items Ukraine could use to further strengthen its military, including portable air defense systems, anti-tank missiles, anti-ship missiles, and counter-battery radars.
He also added drones, sniper rifles, anti-sniper equipment, night vision goggles, encrypted radio communication devices, and satellite communication devices to the list.
