Damaged caused to a residential building following a drone attack in Odesa, amid the Russian invasion in Ukraine. PIC/ AFP
The potential weapon sales, which the department said were notified to Congress, include 150 million dollars for the supply, maintenance, repair and overhaul of U.S. armoured vehicles, and 172 million dollars for surface-to-air missile systems
The approvals come weeks after Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth directed a pause on other weapons shipments to Ukraine to allow the Pentagon to assess its weapons stockpiles, in a move that caught the White House by surprise. President Donald Trump then made an abrupt change in posture, pledging publicly earlier this month to continue to send weapons to Ukraine
Trump recently endorsed a plan to have European allies buy U.S. military equipment that can then be transferred to Ukraine. It was not immediately clear how the latest proposed sales related to that arrangement
Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the U.S. has provided more than 67 billion dollar in weapons and security assistance to Kyiv
Since Trump came back into office, his administration has gone back and forth about providing more military aid to Ukraine, with political pressure to stop U.S. funding of foreign wars coming from the isolationists inside the Trump administration and on Capitol Hill
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