US sending $300 million in new arms aid to Ukraine including air-launched rockets

The United States is sending a $300 military aid package to Ukraine, including, for the first time, short-range air-launched rockets, deepening its involvement in the war in defiance of repeated warnings by Russia.

Two US officials said on Tuesday the package includes Hydra 70 rockets, which are unguided projectiles fired from aircraft, Reuters reported.

It also includes artillery rounds, 155-mm Howitzer cannons, anti-tank missiles and mortars as Ukrainian officials say they are planning a counteroffensive.

The Pentagon has also sent at least 20 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) to Ukraine. HIMARS systems, which are made by Lockheed Martin, are intended to be a “core component of Ukraine’s fighting force in the future,” according to a senior US defense official told reporters.

The funds for the new military shipment to Ukraine were provided once more by using the Presidential Drawdown Authority, or PDA, by which the President of the United States can legally authorize the shipment of military equipment and services from US stocks without gaining congressional approval in response to an emergency.

The package brings the total amount of US military aid to about $36 billion dollars.

The US and its Western allies have kept feeding Ukraine with massive amounts of arms since the start of the war last year.

Moscow has time and again warned that military assistance will only prolong the war and add to the suffering of the Ukrainian people.

US President Joe Biden has said he expects American aid to Ukraine will continue without interruption despite opposition by Republicans.

Republican lawmakers have voiced concerns about the haphazard military shipments to Ukraine.

Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene said Washington’s military aid to Ukraine was a US-led “proxy war” against Russia.

She said the Ukraine war had placed a heavy financial burden on the shoulders of Americans, who were already grappling with poverty.

However, the lawmaker also admitted that war was “a deadly profitable industry” for the US government.