US announces $425M military aid package for Ukraine days before 2024 presidential election

WASHINGTON — The White House announced yet another military aid package for Ukraine Friday — this time to the tune of about $425 million — as Russia moves North Korean troops closer to the front lines and a bitterly contested US presidential election approaches.

The latest package will include air-defense interceptors, munitions for rocket systems and artillery, armored vehicles and anti-tank weapons to assist Ukraine in its brutal battle to keep its sovereignty.

The weapons allocated in this tranche — including surface-to-air missile system munitions as well as TOW and Javelin anti-tank missiles — look similar those of previous packages, with most designed to help Ukraine fight from the air and ground in the flat, rolling plains of the eastern Donbas region.

The package was announced days after the Pentagon finally confirmed Ukrainian reports that North Korea has sent thousands of troops to Russia to bolster Moscow’s invasion.

In a new report Friday by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), analysts suggested that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un likely wanted his forces to learn from a real-life ground war — something the Hermit Kingdom’s military hasn’t fought in seven decades.

(While the Korean War has still not technically ended, large-scale combat between North Korea and South Korea ended with an armistice agreed in 1953.

“North Korea likely hopes that its forces will have the opportunity to refine offensive doctrine, test their weapons systems against a Western-provisioned adversary, gain command and control experience, and learn how to operate drones and electronic warfare systems on the modern battlefield,” the ISW analysts wrote.

“Pyongyang likely hopes that any skills its troops learn in the Ukraine war will give it an offensive edge in future conflicts, including on the Korean Peninsula,” they added.

However, it is unclear how Russia will deploy the extra North Korean forces — who number anywhere between 3,000 to 12,000 troops

“The actual ability of North Korean forces to absorb, disseminate, and institutionalize lessons learned on the battlefield is entirely contingent on how the Russian command uses North Korean manpower,” the ISW found.

“If Russia uses North Korean personnel as ‘cannon fodder,’ the casualties that North Korean troops are sure to accrue will undermine whatever battlefield lessons Pyongyang hopes to learn.”

Early reports indicate that at least some of the North Korean forces are being used by Russia in that exact manner.

Some of the first of Pyongyang’s troops to arrive in Russia’s Kursk region — where Ukrainian Defense Forces have successfully dug in — appeared to be very young and inexperienced, according to Kyiv’s intelligence officials.

The weapons for the latest assistance packages will come from Pentagon stockpiles, which will be replaced with new weapons using the $425 million in congressionally approved funds.