The U.S. will send Ukraine an undisclosed number of medium-range cluster bombs and an array of rockets, artillery and armored vehicles in a military aid package totaling about $375 million, U.S. officials said Tuesday.

Officials expect an announcement on Wednesday, as global leaders meet at the U.N. General Assembly, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy uses his appearance there to shore up support and persuade the U.S. to allow his troops to use long-range weapon s to strike deeper into Russia. The following day, Zelenskyy meets with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in Washington.

  • bufalo1973@lemmy.ml
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    2 months ago

    The post-war part is another different thing. But telling someone that’s on fire “pay me for putting the flames down” is inhuman.

    • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 months ago

      we’re not telling them, i think ukraine is even asking for them at some points. Ukraine agrees to the loans, and like i said, i think some amount of the money is default-able loans. So it’s not actually “debt sharking” here.

      • bufalo1973@lemmy.ml
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        2 months ago

        If it’s an ally and NATO is defending human rights and democracy (I know, I know) it should be “free” for Ukraine.

        • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          2 months ago

          If ukraine is an ally, i understand that to be fairly recent, prior to zelenskyy the president of Ukraine was a russian plant. I believe he was voted in about 2014 or so.

          NATO is primarily an alliance between members of the alliance, of which ukraine is not a member. Protecting members outside of NATO is not really inside the purview of NATO as an organization, although protecting border states is politically advantageous.

          anyway, i tried looking for some data and didn’t have much luck, but even thinking about it from a strategic position it wouldn’t make sense to loan shark ukraine here. Worst case scenario they collapse after winning due to the loans, and then russia takes over, or they collapse during the war, and we have to deal with getting that money back, because it’s marked as a loan, which wouldn’t really make any sense.

          I think the idea is relatively simple, it provides a way for ukraine to borrow money, assuming they win it provides them a way to pay it back or default on it, and that allows ukraine to stay relatively neutral. Just giving free money to ukraine is probably less than ideal.

          From the research i did do, i couldn’t find anything talking about how it would be problematic, it was mostly talking about numbers which makes sense, so i guess that checks out, but i would’ve been surprised if nobody had reported on that either.