Free Republic

Ukraine has received its first delivery of NASAMS air defence systems which will "significantly strengthen" its armed forces, Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov said on Monday. White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said last month the United States was accelerating the shipment of the sophisticated NASAMS systems to Ukraine after a devastating missile barrage from Russia. "Look who’s here! NASAMS and Aspide air defence systems arrived in Ukraine!," Reznikov wrote on the Telegram messaging app, thanking Norway, Spain and the United States for the shipments. "These weapons will significantly strengthen the #UAarmy and will make our skies safer."

U.S. military personnel are now on the ground in Ukraine, keeping track of and inspecting weapons the U.S. has shipped to Ukrainian forces, a senior defense official announced during a Pentagon background briefing on Monday. These U.S. personnel are some of the first the Pentagon has acknowledged have entered Ukraine since Russia launched its large scale invasion of the country in February. The senior defense official who spoke on background during an official Pentagon event, said, “U.S. personnel have recently resumed on-site inspections to assess weapon stocks in country whenever and wherever the security conditions allow.” The official said “the...

A small number of U.S. military forces inside Ukraine have recently begun doing onsite inspections to ensure that Ukrainian troops are properly accounting for the Western-provided weapons they receive, a senior U.S. defense official told Pentagon reporters Monday. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide a military update, would not say where the inspections are taking place or how close to the battlefronts the U.S. troops are getting. The official said U.S. personnel can’t do inspections “close to the front lines,” but said they are going where security conditions allow.