On Feb. 3, the Department of Defense announced a $2.2 billion aid package to Ukraine. This package would contain a variety of air defense systems, as well as missiles that would double Ukraine’s attack range.

The new long range missile is called the Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb (GLSDB). This bomb can strike Russian military targets up to 150 km (93 miles) away with an accuracy of about one meter wide.

This weaponry greatly exceeds the range of any weapon that Ukraine’s arsenal currently includes.

The munitions Ukraine currently fires from their M142 HIMARS that can only go up to 80 km (50 miles) in comparison. Ukraine has already used HIMARS in what are called shoot-and-scoot firing missions.

Shoot-and-scoot is a tactic of firing at a target and moving from the location you fired from to avoid counter battery fire. This tactic has been the reason Russia has hit zero HIMARS since the United States gave them the vehicle in the beginning of June 2022.

When integrated, this munition can be fired by the M142 HIMAR and the M270 MLRS rocket artillery systems that are already supplied to Ukraine by the United States and United Kingdom respectively.

The M270 MLRS is another self propelled rocket launcher capable of firing 70 km (45 miles) Ukraine has 13 of these artillery vehicles in their arsenal from Norway and the United Kingdom.

This weapon can also be fired from non-traditional launchers like the back of an ordinary truck or non-descript shipping containers sitting in plain sight. This makes it more difficult for Russian forces to find and destroy the system.

Ukraine has been asking for longer ranged missile systems since late December. The need for these missiles has been so urgent due to Russia’s ability to attack regions in Ukraine that are far from the front line — such as the Donetsk region — because of long range missile capabilities.

“Ukraine needs long-range missiles — in particular, to remove this possibility of the occupiers to place their missile launchers somewhere far from the front line and destroy Ukrainian cities with them,” Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, said. 

Along with the threat of long ranged artillery, Ukraine has faced many problems with various types of aerial weapons Russia has been using.

This is why this package also contains multiple air defense systems to help Ukraine address this problem.

Among this equipment is four air surveillance radars, anti-aircraft guns, and two MIM-23 Hawk air defense systems to help deny Russia air superiority and limit the bombing to the capitol of Kyiv. 

The HAWK is a medium range surface to air missile that is known to be highly lethal, reliable, and effective against electronic countermeasures. While it is an older air defense system, made in the ‘60s, this system has been proven reliable and works extremely well.

The United States has now committed $29.3 billion since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, working with its allies to provide Ukraine with the resources it needs as this invasion goes on.