The Biden administration is expected to announce a roughly $2 billion military assistance package for Ukraine on Wednesday—one that includes Patriot missile systems and misleadingly named “precision bomb kits”—as the war-ravaged nation’s president visits Washington, D.C. in his first trip outside of his country since the start of Russia’s invasion 10 months ago.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is set to meet with U.S. President Joe Biden at the White House to accept the latest aid package, which comes on top of the nearly $45 billion in assistance Congress is poised to approve as part of its year-end omnibus spending bill. Later Wednesday, Zelenskyy is expected to speak to the press and deliver a primetime address to a joint session of Congress.
“We urge our government to take a leadership role in bringing the war in Ukraine to an end through supporting calls for a ceasefire and negotiated settlement.”
During a background call with reporters late Tuesday, a senior Biden administration official called the planned shipment of long-flawed Patriot missile systems—which Moscow has deemed a provocation—a “critical” step to “defend the Ukrainian people against Russia’s barbaric attacks on Ukraine’s critical infrastructure.”
“We will train Ukrainian forces on how to operate the Patriot missile battery in a third country,” the official said. “This will take some time, but Ukrainian troops will take that training back to their country to operate this battery.”
CNN reported Tuesday that the $2 billion package is also expected to include “precision bomb kits that will turn existing unguided munitions, or ‘dumb’ bombs, into precision-guided ‘smart’ bombs known as Joint Direct Attack Munitions, or JDAMs.”
“The precision bombs could help Ukraine attack fixed Russian defensive lines or other large targets,” CNN added. “But they need to be dropped from fighter jets, which remains a significant challenge because of Russia’s own air defenses.”
Zelenskyy’s visit to the U.S. capital will come as the prospects of peace talks to end the war, now approaching its second year, appear as distant as ever with civilian deaths continuing to mount and the possibility of a broader war still looming.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, a persistent advocate of a diplomatic settlement to end the devastating war, said during a press conference earlier this week that he is “not optimistic about the possibility of effective peace talks” in the “immediate future.”
“I do believe that the military confrontation will go on, and I think we will have still to wait a moment in which serious negotiations for peace will be possible,” Guterres added. “I don’t see them in the immediate horizon.”
Last week, around 1,000 U.S. faith leaders including Bishop William J. Barber, Rev. Liz Theoharis, Dr. Cornel West, and Rev. Jesse Jackson released a statement calling for a “Christmas Truce in Ukraine.”
“In the spirit of the truce that occurred in 1914 during the First World War,” the statement reads, “we urge our government to take a leadership role in bringing the war in Ukraine to an end through supporting calls for a ceasefire and negotiated settlement, before the conflict results in a nuclear war that could devastate the world’s ecosystems and annihilate all of God’s creation.”
