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On August 1, the US Department of Defense announced another military aid package for Ukraine valued at up to $550 million. This authorization is the Biden Administration’s seventeenth drawdown of equipment from DoD inventories for Ukraine since August 2021. The new package includes 75,000 rounds of 155mm artillery ammunition and additional ammunition for HIMARS, Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems. In total, the United States has already committed approximately $8.8 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of the Biden Administration. Since 2014, the United States has committed more than $10 billion. In turn, the Ukrainian Defense Minister claimed that four more mobile HIMARS launchers have been delivered to Ukraine. In total, Kiev got 16 launchers from the US. The Ukrainian Defense Minister declared that the Ukrainian army has received German MARS II MLRS. The exact number of launchers handed over to Kiev was not revealed but earlier Berlin reported that there should be three of them in total. Earlier on July 26, German Defense Minister Christina Lambrecht said that Germany has delivered the promised multiple rocket launcher systems to Ukraine along with three more Panzerhaubitze 2000 self-propelled howitzers. Many Ukrainian crews of western systems are under the direct command of active military personnel of the US Army. On the same day, the Russian Ministry of Defense declared the destruction of two more HIMARS systems as a result of a strike on the Ukrainian Energy Machines at a plant in Kharkiv. 53 Ukrainian servicemen and foreign mercenaries were killed in the attack. So far, the Russian side has announced that 6 HIMARS launchers have been destroyed. Among the other foreign military equipment, 5 Harpoon anti-ship complexes and 33 M777 howitzers were hit by Russian forces. Military equipment supplied to the Armed Forces of Ukraine by Kiev’s western allies is used not only in the battles on the front lines but also for the attacks on civilians in the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics. On August 2, the People’s Militia of the DPR reported that 355 shells were fired by Ukrainian forces on the territory of the republic over the past day. As a result of the shelling of 13 different settlements, a civilian was killed and four others were injured. The Armed Forces of Ukraine launched 15 HIMARS missiles at the villages of Pervomaisk and Stakhanov damaging civilian infrastructure. The West is falling into a direct military conflict against Russia.
