U.S. Just Gave Russia Another Devastating Blow

What more could the United States do to help  Ukraine win the war against Russia? The U. S.

is already the biggest single military aid giver  to Ukraine in the world, with the country having ponied up $56 billion in funding to date  according to the BBC. The Kiel Institute, which tracks aid to Ukraine per country, puts  the number even higher at $92. 33 billion.

The next nearest country in terms of the sheer volume  of aid provided is Germany at around $16 billion, and most of that money is dedicated to helping  refugees. Ukraine has received an enormous amount of money from the U. S.

And it’s about to get more.  The United States just gave Russia a devastating blow with the announcement of a new round of  funding that’s going to set Ukraine up to take the war beyond 2024. As Putin hopes his meat grinder  tactics will wear out the Ukrainian resistance, this new blow sends a clear message from the U.

S. :  It’s time to get out of Ukraine. But what makes America’s latest donation to Ukraine’s war chest  so important?

And why is this yet another signal from the U. S. to Putin that it’s time for him to  wind up a war that he has no chance of winning?

We explain everything in this video. Let’s  start with the donation. On September 26, 2024, the BBC reported that active President Joe Biden  – along with the United States Congress – had granted rapid approval for a military aid package  worth $8 billion.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was quick to thank both for the  money. The donation also acted as a symbol of the strengthening bonds between the U. S.

and  Ukraine as it was made during a visit by Zelenskyy to Washington. CNBC offered more details about  the aid. Around $5.

5 billion of the $8 billion will be donated before the end of America’s fiscal  year, which concluded on September 30. That was a very purposeful choice. The end of the fiscal  year would have marked the expiry of the funding authority, meaning the U.

S. had to get that money  out soon or risk having to add it to its 2024/2025 budget. The rest of the money is dedicated to  the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, or USAI.

That’s an interesting choice. The USAI  allows a donating country to purchase weapons for Ukraine from private companies rather than  delivering weapons directly from their own stock. That means around $2.

5 billion of the aid Ukraine  is set to receive will be brand-new weapons purchased specifically to serve the country’s  strategic goals or materials Ukraine can use to build weapons internally. “I am grateful to the  United States for providing the items that are most critical to protecting our people,” Zelenskyy  said on X following Biden’s announcement. As President Biden approaches the end of his term  in January 2025, this donation may be one of the final aid packages of his administration.

At  this point, you may be wondering why this is such a major move on America’s part. After all, the $8  billion is part of a $61 billion aid package that the United States announced in April 2024. That  package took months to make it through the U.

S. House of Representatives in large part because  House Republicans objected to sending money to Ukraine rather than using it to deal with  America’s border issues. But the package made it through and is fully approved, meaning the  $8 billion was always going to make its way to Ukraine.

So, why is this aid such a strategic blow  to Russia? There are a few reasons, starting with the timing of the aid package. We just touched  on how House Republicans managed to successfully delay America’s $61 billion aid package for  several months.

That move was indicative of an increasingly frosty relationship between Ukraine’s  President and the Republican party. During his campaign, President-elect Donald Trump expressed  concerns about the volume of U. S.

aid to Ukraine, criticizing Zelenskyy’s approach to negotiations  with Putin. “Those cities are gone, they’re gone,” Trump claimed in September 2024 while talking  about Zelenskyy's handling of the Ukraine war and the losses imposed on his country. “And we  continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refused to make a deal – Zelenskyy,” Trump  claimed.

He went on to state that there was no deal Putin could offer that wouldn’t leave Ukraine  in a better position than it’s in now. All of these comments were made during Trump’s campaign  speech at Mint Hill in North Carolina. They came amidst news that Republican lawmakers were trying  to investigate how much taxpayer money was spent to provide Zelenskyy with a security detail during  his September visit to the U.

S. Zelenskyy has also levied criticism at the Republican party, with CNN  reporting that be called Trump’s running partner, JD Vance, “too radical. ” It all adds up to  a tumultuous relationship between Zelenskyy and the party that has recently come to power. 

That brings us back to the timing issue. Biden’s decision to approve the $8 billion in September  ensured the funds reached Ukraine before the fiscal year ended. His approving the $8 billion  now ensures Ukraine has the weapons it needs to continue the fight for a while longer.

That’s  bad news for Putin. More bad news comes from the fact that Biden used a mechanism called  a “Presidential Drwdown” to deliver the aid to Ukraine. The BBC spoke to Orysia Lutsevych,  who heads the Ukrainian Forum at Chatham House, to discuss this move.

“What is interesting is  [Biden] says he can deploy quickly some of the weapons that are in U. S. storage as part of his  presidential drawdown authority,” she told the British news outlet.

That would mean changing  dynamics on the ground based on when the weapons arrive in Ukraine, with the potential for those  changes to occur much quicker than is typical. So, what is a presidential drawdown? The U.

S.  Department of State website says that a U. S.

president has the power to direct an immediate  drawdown under Section 506(a)(1) of the Foreign Assistance Act, or FAA. The FAA was designed to  allow the U. S.

to respond quickly to crises with immediate changes in foreign policy. Specifically,  Section 506(a)(1) allows America to quickly deliver “defense articles and services from  Department of Defense stocks to foreign countries and international organizations to respond to  unforeseen emergencies. ” Biden’s administration has used presidential drawdown authority 55 times  in preparation for Putin’s “special military operation” in Ukraine.

That may make this latest  usage of the authority seem unimportant given that it seems to be standard practice for sending aid  to Ukraine. However, that’s not the case. For one, Biden has used his drawdown powers because  of the fiscal year deadline that loomed when he made the $8 billion donation announcement. 

The $5. 5 billion of weaponry being delivered to Ukraine directly from the U. S.

is the last that  Biden could provide using his drawdown powers. That’s bad news for Putin. The drawdown guarantees  that Ukraine will receive the $8 billion in aid, regardless of the recent change in U.

S.  administration. While Putin may have anticipated a shift in U.

S. policy following the election,  this package ensures continued support for Ukraine without delay. On September 23, 2024 – just  three days before Biden announced the $8 billion aid package – the BBC reported that Zelenskyy  intended to present a “victory plan” to Biden, Trump, and Harris during his state visit. 

The move was painted as a persuasive effort. Zelenskyy wanted to show Washington that he knew  exactly how to use any aid delivered to him. Plus, he hoped his victory plan might represent the  final push he needed to convince the U.

S. to allow Ukraine to use American long-range missiles  on Russian territory. The victory plan must have worked.

Zelenskyy came away from the United States  with an $8 billion commitment. At the time of the BBC’s reporting, few details were known about  Zelenskyy's victory plan beyond vague statements, such as the Ukrainian president’s claim on X that  the fall would “determine the future of this war. ” In the days that followed Zelenskyy's U.

S. visit,  more details emerged about the plan. The Guardian reported that an “unconditional invite” to join  NATO lay at its heart, with Ukraine seeing such an invite as the perfect counter to Russian  aggression.

After all, Article 5 of the NATO treaty says that an attack on a single NATO  member represents an attack on all of them, with a collective response being the natural  consequence. That commitment would show Putin that his geopolitical ambitions were “headed for  defeat” according to Zelenskyy, though it’s part of his plan that isn’t likely to come to fruition  while the war is ongoing. NATO doesn’t want to enter a direct war with Russia right now, which it  would be obligated to fight if Ukraine was a NATO member.

NATO chief Mark Rutte demonstrated this  hesitance when responding to Zelenskyy's plan, saying the organization would “take note”  of the proposal. However, he also added that the plan “has many aspects and many political and  military issues we really need to hammer out with the Ukrainians to understand what is behind it. ”  In other words, Zelenskyy's strategy isn’t just to join NATO and let over 30 other countries help  him handle Putin.

There’s some actual substance there – substance that may have convinced the U. S.  to fast-track the $8 billion in military aid.

That will terrify Putin, especially as the plan seems  to be comprehensive enough to convince the U. S. to deliver such a devastating financial blow.

Other  information we know about the plan comes from unintended leaks, at least on Zelenskyy's part. On  October 30, Politico confirmed that the Ukrainian president had asked the U. S.

for Tomahawk cruise  missiles as part of his plan. That information was never meant to get out. Those missiles can fly  for up to 932 miles, with Zelenskyy clearly hoping to get his hands on them so he can attack Russian  targets.

“And this was confidential information between Ukraine and the White House,” Zelenskyy  raged in response to the leak. “How should we understand these messages? So, it means between  partners there’s nothing confidential?

” Perhaps signs of friction are emerging between the  U. S. and Ukraine.

But setting that aside, it’s clear from this leak that Zelenskyy's plan  relies on more than NATO membership. The plan contains a military strategy that the U. S.

seems  to support. Ukraine says as much. A Ukrainian official familiar with the plan told Politico  as much, saying “We know the plan is realistic.

U. S. ’s own military studied it and said it is  realistic.

” That may be the most telling aspect of Ukraine’s plan, and the thing that prompted  America to deliver this latest blow to Putin’s regime. Around $8 billion is on its way to Ukraine  because the United States is convinced Zelenskyy has figured out a way to win the war. It just  needs the right weapons to push Zelenskyy's strategy forward.

That brings us to the most  important aspect of the $8 billion military aid package – what it actually delivers to Ukraine on  the strategic front. Reuters reports that the aid will include munitions, weapons to fight against  Russian drone attacks, and materials Ukraine can use to produce its own weapons. That last point  is important.

Ukraine says that it has developed a new long-range missile. What we do know for  certain, thanks to the previously mentioned CNBC report, is that an additional Patriot battery is  part of the $8 billion aid package. The Patriot has been a standout of Ukraine’s anti-air strategy  throughout the war.

The missile system – which is also America’s primary anti-air system – can  carry and launch up to four PAC-2 or sixteen PAC-3 missiles simultaneously depending on the  version of the launcher. Each of those missiles, which are also part of the $8 billion package,  comes equipped with a track-via-missile, or TVM, guidance system. That allows the missile to not  only be programmed with a target before launch, but to make real-time course corrections based  on data transmitted to the missile from a mobile engagement control center while it’s in flight. 

TVM allows the Patriot system to make the most out of missiles that can travel for up to 43  miles while achieving a flight ceiling of 14. 9 miles – ideal for taking out incoming fighter  planes, drones, and Russian bombs. Ukraine has already put the Patriots it has to great use.

In  June 2024, Business Insider reported on Ukraine using its Patriot batteries to take out a Russian  A-50 spy plane. The move was deemed “historic” by Assistant Chief of Staff of the 10th Army Air and  Missile Defense Command Colonel Rosanna Clemente. She noted that Ukraine uses Patriots to defend  both static sites and national infrastructure, while also pointing out Ukraine’s clever  “SAMbush” tactics.

Those tactics are unlike anything Clemente has seen “in 22 years of  being an air defender,” and they show that even a single additional Patriot battery heading  to Ukraine is bad news for Russia. And it’s not just more Patriot missiles that Putin has to worry  about. CNBC also says the U.

S. has committed to providing more training for Ukraine’s growing  fleet of F-16 pilots. The United States hasn’t provided F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine directly,  despite Zelenskyy's repeated pleas for the planes.

However, Ukraine has received F-16s from  several of its European allies, with the first six arriving in the country back in August 2024.  More are coming. The Center for Strategic and International Studies says that several European  countries, including Denmark and the Netherlands, have combined to form a consortium that has  committed 65 F-16s to Ukraine.

The Guardian places the number even higher – it says 85 F-16s  are on their way, with most likely arriving in 2025. Either way, Ukraine is getting its hands on  fighter jets that could help it secure pockets of air superiority over Russian positions, opening  the door for ground assaults. F-16s can also help Ukraine defend itself from Russia’s missile,  drone, and bomb strikes, as was proven when F-16s shot down at least four Russian missiles during a  late-August strike.

But those planes need pilots. America’s commitment to training more of those  pilots means Putin will have to rethink his aerial strategy. He may have hoped to rely on  the fact that most of Ukraine’s fighter pilots are only familiar with the Soviet-era flying  systems the country had before he launched his “special military operation.

” F-16s are far  more complicated beasts than those planes. With the U. S.

providing more training, Ukraine will  have more qualified pilots ready to fly when the next batches of F-16s arrive from Europe.  That boosts the country’s aerial offensive and defensive power considerably, especially in terms  of giving Ukraine the ability to attack Russian positions behind the front lines. Russia doesn’t  want that.

It also doesn’t want Ukraine to have access to a missile that has also been promised  as part of America’s $8 billion aid package – the Joint Standoff Weapon, or JSOW. Forbes calls this  powerful weapon a “new (to Ukraine) glide bomb” that Ukraine can launch from behind the front  lines and rely upon to travel up to 70 miles to reach a Russian target. A single JSOW weighs  1,065 pounds and carries a powerful warhead that varies depending on the missile’s variant.

The  AGM-154A/145 BLU-97, for example, is a warhead that delivers combined effect bomblets to a  target. There are also variants of the JSOW that carry a broach multi-stage warhead to give  the weapon penetrative power against well-guarded targets, such as industrial facilities and weapon  storage bunkers. Each JSOW comes equipped with wings – allowing it to glide – and combines  a GPS with an inertial navigation system to ensure it hits its target.

Add a terminal infrared  seeker into that guidance mix and you get a bomb that is far more accurate than the makeshift glide  bombs Russia has pelted Ukraine with over the last couple of years. Why is the JSOW so important?  The answer comes down to two s’s – strategy and stockpiles.

On the strategic side, the JSOW  finally allows Ukraine to use Russia’s tactics against it. After the abject failure of Putin’s  attempts to gain air superiority over Ukraine using fighter jets and helicopters – Russia has  lost 369 of the former (including spy planes) and 329 of the latter according to Ukraine’s Ministry  of Finance – he turned to Soviet-era bombs to attack Ukraine. Those bombs have devastated  Ukrainian cities.

For instance, Russia used around 200 of them in a single week to batter the  Ukrainian town of Vovchansk during its assault on Kharkiv in May 2024. March 2024 alone saw Russia  drop 3,000 of these bombs on Ukraine according to Zelenskyy. Russia usually uses the FAB-1500 – a  1.

65-ton Soviet-era weapon – to create its glide bombs. Strap a glide kit costing between $20,000  and $30,000 to a FAB-1500 and voila – Russia has a devastating weapon it can launch from behind the  front lines at Ukraine. And that’s the important point.

The wings built into a glide bomb allow  it to be launched from tens of miles away from its intended target. That means Russia can launch  such bombs from its planes without putting those aircraft in the firing lines of Ukraine’s anti-air  defenses. Ukraine didn’t have a comparable weapon to Russia’s glide bombs until now.

With the  JSOW, Ukraine turns the tables on Russia with a bomb it can also launch from safe positions  that will devastate Russian fortifications. The JSOW also makes Ukraine’s incoming fleet of  F-16s more versatile as they’re launchable from that plane. As for stockpiles, the United States  had a total production plan that would result in 3,334 JSOW units being manufactured back in  2015.

Defense Express says it used around 400 of these missiles in Iraq and Afghanistan,  noting that “it is possible to assume that there may be more than 2,000 JSOW units left in  the United States. ” That’s a lot of missiles. Don’t underestimate the importance of Ukraine  having access to such extensive stockpiles.

The U. S. won’t provide all of these JSOWs to Ukraine. 

It hasn’t even announced how many will be part of the $8 billion aid package. But the fact that  such extensive stockpiles exist means Ukraine doesn’t have to worry about running out of a  weapon that will prove vital in its efforts to devastate Russian fortifications within its own  country. Ukraine basically has JSOWs on tap now, with those being delivered as part of America’s  aid package likely being the first of many that expand the country’s tactical capabilities.

So,  what does all of this mean for Russia? The United States has used its $8 billion aid package to send  the clear message that it’s time for Russia to get out of Ukraine. The timing is very deliberate,  both in terms of American budgetary issues and because this package represents the last of  Biden’s drawdowns.

Putin may have hoped the change in U. S. administration would stymie the flow of  weapons to Ukraine, but Biden’s $8 billion package ensures continued support regardless of the  transition.

As for the weapons being delivered, each gives Ukraine a tactical advantage over  Russia. Another Patriot battery will prove just as useful as those already in Ukraine. More trained  F-16 pilots result in Ukraine making better use of the fighter jets that are due to pour into  the country from its European allies.

And with the JSOW, Ukraine finally has a weapon that allows  it to go shot-for-shot with Russia and its glide bomb strategy. Still, it’s clear the U. S.

is  not only confident in Zelenskyy's victory plan, but is actively supporting it with the weapons  Ukraine’s president needs. But what do you think about America’s $8 billion funding package? How  devastating of a blow does it deliver to a Russian leader who’s hoping that Ukraine will run out of  weapons?

How do you think Ukraine will use its new JSOWs? Share your thoughts in the comments and  thank you for watching this video. Now go check out AUSTRALIA Just Gave Russia Another Devastating  Blow or click this other video instead!