US to pump Ukraine with $275mn more in military aid

The United States is preparing a new $275 million package of military aid for Ukraine as it continues to bolster Kiev's forces amid Russia's ongoing special operation, a report says.

The latest package is likely to include ammunition and more High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) launchers, Reuters reported.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has said that the flow of weapons to Ukraine will continue as he claimed the added arms “have made such a difference on the battlefield.”

In the meantime, Russia has repeatedly warned that supplying Kiev with more and more weapons will only exacerbate the conflict, which is now in its ninth month.

Continuously flooding Ukraine with weapons "will only drag the conflict out and make it more painful for the Ukrainian side, but it will not change our goals and the end result," the Kremlin's Spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said earlier this month.

Peskov insisted that the US was in reality engaged in the Ukraine conflict. "The US de facto has become deeply involved," he said.

His remarks echoed those of Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who said that Washington had "been participating de facto in this war for a long time."

"This war is being controlled by the Anglo-Saxons," Lavrov said.

Meanwhile, Russia revealed last week that a large portion of the weapons provided to the Kiev regime by the US and its allies was headed to the black market and then into the hands of extremist and criminal groups in West Asia, central Africa and Asia.

In this regard, the International Criminal Police Organization, Interpol, has also sounded the alarm.

Interpol Secretary General Juergen Stock said that the flooding of arms from the United States and its European allies into the ex-Soviet country was a mistake.

He warned that a large share of the weapons sent by the West to Ukraine will eventually end up in criminal hands in Europe and beyond.

ME