Apart from sending arms to its NATO allies, the Biden administration also continues to supply Kiev with weapons, something that Moscow warns will only further aggravate the Ukraine conflict.
The number and price of arms sales approved by Washington to its NATO allies almost doubled in 2022 as compared to 2021, a US magazine has reported.
The outlet noted that last year, the US government approved 14 possible major arms sales to its allies in the alliance, worth about $15.5 billion. In 2022, the figure soared to 24 potential major arms sales with price tag of around $28 billion, including $1.24 billion worth of arms sales to possible new NATO member Finland.
The magazine pointed out that the data indicates that the US remains “a major arms supplier for allies in Europe in the short term,” in the midst of European defense industries’ push to “meet wartime demands for conventional arms and ammunition.”
According to the media outlet, the increase took place as NATO members scrambled “to stock up on high-end weapons” amid the ongoing Russian special military operation in Ukraine.
The outlet reported that although some of arms sales deals were negotiated years beforehand, the Russian special operation sent NATO’s European members scrambling to bump up their military spending, and to replenish vehicles, weapons, and ammunition delivered to the Ukrainian military.
Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia have all ordered HIMARS Multiple-Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS), while the US State Department authorized earlier this month the sale of 116 M1A1 Abrams tanks to Poland, after Warsaw sent its Soviet-era T-72 and domestically-made PT-91 tanks to Kiev’s forces.
The report comes after President Joe Biden signed a new $1.7 trillion federal spending bill into law, a document that includes $858 billion in defense spending.
According to a statement released on the website of the US Senate Committee on Budget Appropriations, the so-called National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) comprises “$44.9 billion in emergency assistance to Ukraine and our (America’s) NATO allies.” Since Russia launched its special operation in Ukraine on February 24, the US and its allies have supplied more than $40 billion worth of arms to Kiev. Moscow has repeatedly warned that providing Kiev with arms prolongs the Ukraine conflict.
The signing of the NDAA followed a separate US media outlet reporting about a surge in the share prices of the four largest US defense contractors, including Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon Technologies, and Pratt & Whitney.
The outlet reported that Lockheed Martin “had booked more than $950 million worth of its own missile military orders from the Pentagon in part to refill stockpiles being used in Ukraine, while Raytheon Technologies was awarded with “more than $2 billion in contracts to deliver missile systems to expand or replenish weapons used to help Ukraine.”
US Fast-Tracking Hundreds of Millions of Dollars in Private Arms Sales to Kiev, Reports Say
The United States has fast-tracked hundreds of millions of dollars worth of private weapons sales to Ukraine since the beginning of Russia’s special military operation in February, The New York Times reported on Thursday.
The US expedited over $300 million in private arms sales to Ukraine, reducing approval times from weeks to hours, in just the first four months of 2022, the report said.
The State Department authorized less than $15 million in such sales to Ukraine throughout the entirety of fiscal year 2021, the report noted.
The hundreds of millions of dollars in private arms sales to Ukraine comes alongside over $17.5 billion in security assistance provided by the Biden administration to Ukraine since taking office.
Russia has repeatedly slammed Washington and its allies over their continued arms deliveries to the Kiev regime, pointing to the danger they pose in escalating the crisis and facilitating weapons smuggling, as a large part of the weapons end up on the black market.
US to Expedite Arms Sales to Allies, Partners With Aim of Outcompeting China - Reports
The United States will speed up its arms sales to allies and partners by removing several bureaucratic road bumps that could cause delays in order to better compete with countries such as China, the Wall Street Journal reported citing US defense officials.
The report said on Friday that the Defense Department launched an initiative to streamline US arms sales to foreign countries, especially to allies and partners that have provided military equipment to Ukraine.
The United States promised European allies who have provided military equipment to Ukraine that it would be able to replenish their stocks, but the US defense industry is facing a backlog, the report said.
The United States could speed up arms sales by having US defense officials help countries draft initial requests for military equipment that would help avoid delays caused by requests that trigger security concerns, the report said.
The Defense Department only approves contracts once a year for certain military equipment, which means countries that fail to submit their orders by the Defense Department's deadline must wait until the following year, the report added.
However, the State Department is currently consulting with the Defense Department on this matter in light of the mission to speed up arms sales to allies, according to the report.
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