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By Brendan Cole
Senior Reporter
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Ukraine will receive more than half a billion dollars in new British military aid that is aimed at helping Kyiv push back the Russian invasion on land and sea, according to U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Ahead of Tuesday's visit to Poland to discuss European security with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, Sunak announced the £500 million ($618 million) package of fresh support for Kyiv, which increases British aid for Ukraine this financial year to £3 billion ($3.71 billion).
The British package comes on the heels of the U.S. House of Representatives finally passing a $60 billion military aid bill after months of wrangling. The deal is expected to be passed by the Senate on Tuesday and signed by President Joe Biden, amid concerns about how quickly it can stop Russia's battlefield momentum.
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With the boost in Western support for Kyiv's forces, Ukraine's military command needs "to start seriously thinking about the counteroffensive and recapturing their land," Ukraine analyst Viktor Kovalenko told Newsweek.
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Sunak's office said Tuesday that the latest funding will be used to rapidly deliver ammunition, air defense, drones and engineering support. The drones will be procured in the U.K., and the funds will support a scaling up in domestic defense supply chains, Sunak's office said, with the British Ministry of Defense sending "our largest-ever single package of equipment from the UK."
The package contains:
- 60 boats, including offshore raiding craft, rigid raiding craft, dive boats, maritime guns
- Over 1,600 strike and air defense missiles
- Storm Shadow long-range, precision-guided missiles
- 160 protected mobility "Husky" vehicles
- 162 armored vehicles
- 78 all-terrain vehicles
- Four million rounds of ammunition
The Storm Shadow long-range precision-guided missiles have already proven effective in striking Russia's Black Sea Fleet. Crucially, the package will include 4 million rounds of small arms ammunition, which has been sorely needed by Ukraine's forces.
British Defense Secretary Grant Shapps said in a statement that the "record package of military aid" will help Ukraine "kick Putin out and restore peace and stability in Europe."
"The UK was the first to provide NLAW missiles, the first to give modern tanks and the first to send long-range missiles," he said. "Now, we are going even further."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that following the House's passage of U.S. aid, "everything has been decided in the ATACMS negotiations for Ukraine," referring to the U.S. Army Tactical Missile System, which can strike targets up to about 186 miles away.
Kovalenko, a Ukrainian combat veteran from 2014 to 2015, said that despite the Western support, "time is definitely on Russia's side to cut the Donbas, and they have manpower for that."
With the U.S. package, "the Ukrainian military command needs to start seriously thinking about the counteroffensive and recapturing their land," he said.
"If Kyiv won't be able to do that this year or...gain back just a few villages, President Zelensky will have to go to the negotiating table with Putin to save Ukraine as a state, at least in [its] existing shape," Kovalenko said.
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