The Pentagon has asked its forces stationed in South Korea to send equipment to Ukraine to help it in the war against Russia, Fox News confirmed Thursday.
Two defense officials said the Pentagon had requested the US Forces Korea (USFK) to send rounds of 155mm howitzer artillery ammunition that would likely be shipped to Ukraine after first transferring through Germany.
The United States is “looking under every rock for ammunition,” an official told Fox News.
Ukrainian military fire a towed howitzer in eastern Ukraine. This photo may not be distributed in the Russian Federation.
(Anna Opareniuk/Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images)
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Department of Defense (DOD) spokesman Lt. Col. Marty Meiners would not confirm details about the equipment transfer, but said the move would not affect US regional readiness in and around South Korea.
“Any potential sale or transfer of equipment will be closely evaluated with respect to the current and future US and United States.” [Republic of Korea] military readiness requirements on the peninsula, and will not detract from our defensive posture or ability to respond to regional threats,” Meiners said.
USFK spokesman Colonel Isaac Taylor echoed this, saying that providing Kyiv with US Armed Forces Korea (USFK) weapons would have “zero impact” on US operations and their ability to to carry out his “iron commitment to the defense” of South Korea.
“There should be no doubt that we remain ready to ‘fight tonight,'” he added.
The announcement comes just days after reports emerged showing that the United States had also transferred thousands of artillery shells from weapons stockpiles in Israel to Ukraine.
Neither Israel nor South Korea have provided defensive aid to Ukraine since the war began, although concerns have grown that Russia could argue that Seoul and Jerusalem have reneged on their promise to allow US forces to divert weapons from their stockpiles, The Report reported. New York Times above. this week.
Ukrainian army medics transfer a wounded soldier at a hospital on the Donbass front in Donetsk, Ukraine, on January 12, 2023.
(Diego Herrera Carcedo/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
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The USFK request comes on top of a separate sale of 100,000 155mm artillery shells from South Korea to the US, which the US will then ship to Ukraine, a deal that has been in the works for almost a year, defense officials confirmed Thursday.
The push to bring more weapons to Ukraine comes as Russia has reportedly sought to expand its army to 1.5 million troops and bolster its war effort in eastern Ukraine.
The UK Defense Ministry assessed on Thursday that Russia may also be looking to transport T-14 tanks to Ukraine after Russian media reported in late December that Moscow was conducting drills with the tanks in southern Russia.
Although the ministry also pointed out the unreliability of the tanks and said that the move to send these vehicles to Ukraine “would probably be mainly for propaganda purposes.”
Ukrainian tankers perform maintenance on their tanks on the Donbass front line as military mobility within the Russo-Ukrainian war continues on January 18, 2023.
(Diego Herrera Carcedo/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
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The ministry said “production is likely to be only in the low tens” and noted that Russia’s commanders are unlikely to “trust the vehicle in combat.”
Ukraine has repeatedly requested tanks from its Western allies.
