(Headline USA) Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Tuesday that the U.S. government will soon announce a plan for taxpayers to send $2.3 billion in security assistance for Ukraine, including anti-tank weapons, interceptors, and munitions for Patriot and other air defense systems.
The announcement came as Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov met with Austin at the Pentagon. And it marks a strong response to pleas from Kyiv for help in battling Russian forces in the Donetsk region.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday that Russia had dropped more than 800 powerful glide bombs in Ukraine in the last week alone. And he urged national leaders to relax restrictions on the use of Western weapons to strike military targets inside Russia.
In particular, he said Ukraine needs the “necessary means to destroy the carriers of these bombs, including Russian combat aircraft, wherever they are.”
According to the Council on Foreign Relations, the United States has spent 175 billion dollars as of May in support of Ukraine since Russia invaded the country in early 2022.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
