$500 million in security assistance for Ukraine includes more armored vehicles

The Biden administration on Tuesday announced another $500 million drawdown package to Ukraine, which includes more than three dozen Bradley and Stryker armored vehicles. 

The drawdown package comes as Ukraine’s armed forces are in roughly week three of their long-expected counteroffensive and are making slow progress against Russian troops. Tuesday’s announcement includes 30 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and 25 Stryker armored personnel carriers, both of which are key to helping the Ukrainians advance. 

About 15% of the 113 Bradleys the U.S. has provided so far have been damaged or destroyed, according to U.S. officials. 

The U.S. has downplayed the significance of videos surfacing online showing damage to vehicles provided by the U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin joked that the Russians have probably shown the same image in different ways to try to make it appear that more of the military vehicles have been damaged, but officials have said that losses were to be expected, which is why the U.S. and allies have spent so much money training the Ukrainians on how to maintain and repair the provided equipment. 

Tuesday’s drawdown also includes more artillery rounds, Javelins, Stingers and more munitions for the previously provided high mobility artillery rocket systems and Patriot air defense battery. 

This is the 41st drawdown of equipment to Ukraine since August 2021. 

The Pentagon announced last week it had overvalued the equipment given to Ukraine from Defense Department stocks by about $6 billion. In the initial valuation, the Defense Department counted the cost it would take to replace old equipment with new equipment, not adding up the value of the old equipment that was being provided to Ukraine.