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President Joe Biden’s administration has decided to allow U.S. defense contractors to work in Ukraine to maintain and repair Pentagon-provided weaponry.
This is according to U.S. officials, Ukrinform reports, citing Reuters.
A U.S. official said the contractors would be small in number and located far from the front lines. They will not be engaged in combat.
They will help ensure U.S.-provided equipment “can be rapidly repaired when damaged and be provided maintenance as needed,” the official said.
Since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the United States has given Kyiv tens of billions of dollars in weaponry. But Kyiv either had to move U.S.-provided weaponry out of the country for heavy repair or rely on video-conferencing and other creative solutions to fix those systems inside the country.
The restrictions in the past have sometimes slowed down repairs and proven increasingly difficult as the U.S. has provided Kyiv with more complicated systems, like F-16 fighter jets and Patriot air defenses, officials say.
A lot of equipment in the country is not being used because it is damaged, a second U.S. official told Reuters.
The move is the latest easing of restrictions by Biden’s administration, which has sought to help Ukraine defend itself against Moscow’s two-and-a-half-year-old invasion without becoming directly engaged against nuclear-armed Russia.
