“The United States and its allies and partners are standing together to expedite security assistance to Ukraine,” the spokesperson said. “We are in close touch with our Ukrainian partners and our NATO Allies on this and are utilizing all available security cooperation tools to help Ukraine bolster its defenses in the face of growing Russian aggression.”
News of the transfer comes as the Biden administration warns of the immediacy of the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine amid Moscow’s amassing an estimated 100,000 troops near its border with Ukraine.
Third-party transfers are only authorized if recipients of weapons of US origin obtain written consent from the State Department before transfer, according to the agency’s website.
According to Politico, which cited an administration official, the requests from the countries were received in recent weeks, with the last of them being approved Wednesday, a day after being received.
The State Department spokesperson didn’t elaborate on what specific weapons were approved for transfer. But The Wall Street Journal reported that the countries will be allowed to send Javelin antitank weapons and Stinger air-defense systems.
The US has invested more than US$2.7 billion in military assistance to Ukraine under the authority of the State Department and Department of Defense since 2014, when Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.
In the last year alone, Washington has committed US$650 million in defense equipment and related services to Ukraine, the spokesperson said, more than at any other point since 2014.
On top of this funding, the US has expedited up to US$60 million in lethal and nonlethal equipment from existing Pentagon stocks since August and in December authorized up to US$200 million in additional security assistance to Ukraine.
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