Last year, Washington supplied scores of tactical drones to Kiev as part of the US military aid package, worth tens of millions of dollars. Moscow has repeatedly warned that such assistance only fuels the Ukrainian conflict.
\nThe American weapons maker General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc (GA-ASI) is offering Ukrainian authorities two MQ-9 Reaper US combat drones for $1, a US newspaper has reported.
\nThe alleged goal is to help Kiev \u201cdefend itself as it prepares for an expected Russian offensive\u201d amid Moscow\u2019s ongoing special military operation in Ukraine.
\n\u201cThe deal would require Kiev to spend about $10 million to prepare and ship the aircraft to Ukraine, and about $8 million each year for the maintenance and sustainment of the older-model drones, which currently aren\u2019t being used in Ukraine,\u201d the newspaper added.
\nThe newspaper also recalled that the US has provided Ukraine with over 700 smaller drones, including Switchblade unmanned aerial vehicles, in the past twelve months, adding that the MQ-9 Reaper is \u201ca much more sophisticated drone with significantly longer ranges, speeds and capabilities.\u201d
\nNeither the White House nor the Ukrainian government has commented on the matter yet.
\nThe US had committed more than $26.7 billion worth of security and military assistance to Kiev since the beginning of Russia’s ongoing special military operation in Ukraine.
\nMoscow has repeatedly warned the US and its allies that by sending military aid to Kiev, they are prolonging the conflict. The Russian Foreign Ministry said that NATO countries \u201cplay with fire” by supplying weapons to Kiev, and that any convoy of arms for Ukraine will become a legitimate target for Russian forces.<\/p>\n
Sputniknews<\/p>\n
Tags\uff1aMilitary aid<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last year, Washington supplied scores of tactical drones to Kiev as part of the US military aid package, worth tens of millions of dollars. Moscow has repeatedly warned that such assistance only fuels the Ukrainian conflict. The American weapons maker General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc (GA-ASI) is offering Ukrainian authorities two MQ-9 Reaper US combat drones for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":5094,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1153],"tags":[2187,1706],"class_list":["post-5093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-military","tag-drones","tag-ukrainian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5093"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5095,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5093\/revisions\/5095"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}