The Biden administration on Thursday announced $375 million more in security assistance for Ukraine, which for the first time will include American Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) glide bombs, a U.S. defense official told ABC News.
The bombs, which can be deployed by Ukraine’s new F-16 fighters, have retractable wings that help them reach targets up to 70 miles away. There are several versions of JSOW, but the ones being sent to Ukraine are equipped with cluster munitions, according to the official.
The U.S. will also soon announce more than $2 billion in aid for Ukraine under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), the official told ABC News on Wednesday. Unlike the $350 million package, which will draw equipment from existing American stockpiles for Ukraine, USAI funds are used for contracts to procure assistance, which can take months or years to materialize. The coming USAI funds will largely go toward restocking Ukraine with munitions, according to the official.
The commitment to send JSOW glide bombs comes as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is in the United States to make the case for global support, speaking before the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday in New York, with plans to present what he has called his “victory plan” to President Joe Biden at the White House on Thursday.
It sounds like Russia’s UMPK glide bombs are more comparable to the inexpensive JDAM-ER, which Ukraine already has. These JSOW glide bombs sound like they have have about twice the range that Russia’s glide bombs do.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGM-154_Joint_Standoff_Weapon
Operational range
- low altitude release: 22 kilometres (12 nmi)
- high altitude release: 130 kilometres (70 nmi)
Glad to see Ukraine is getting more and more support. These will also be easier to integrate into their systems since they are now operating F-16s, a platform that has already been integrated with this weapon system. So, we don’t need to figure out how to get them to play nice with soviet systems like the MiG-29 as was done for things like HARM anti-radiation missiles. IIRC, they ended up adding a tablet into the cockpit to interact with the HARMs, but even then they could only use a subset of the missile’s standard functions with it.
The major hold on is still is due the unfortunate election, because one candidate is putin’s lapdog. Normally we would have bipartisan support.
