US to announce $3-billion in new military aid for Ukraine - official

The package is being prepared to coincide with Ukraine's Independence Day on Wednesday.

The package uses funds from the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI) appropriated by Congress to allow the Biden administration to procure weapons from industry rather than taking weapons from existing US weapons stocks.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said the new weapons did not appear to include types of arms that had not been provided previously to the Ukrainian military. But the official said it would focus on ammunition and more medium-term objectives like defence systems.

Under the USAI, the weapons could take months to arrive in Europe, given that companies have to procure them.

The official said the amount and mix of weapons could change before the formal announcement.

Since Russian troops invaded on February 24 in what Russian President Vladimir Putin termed a "special military operation" to demilitarise Ukraine, the conflict has settled into a war of attrition fought primarily in eastern and southern Ukraine.

Washington has provided $10.6-billion in military assistance to President Volodymyr Zelensky's government since February 24. Read full story

Germany plans to deliver further arms, including air-defence systems, rocket launchers and precision munitions, to Ukraine worth more than 500-million euros in 2023, a source told Reuters

Moscow is trying to gain control of the largely Russian-speaking Donbas region, comprised of Luhansk and Donetsk provinces, where pro-Moscow separatists seized territory after the Kremlin annexed Crimea to the south in 2014.

Ukraine accuses Moscow of an imperial-style war to retake a pro-Western neighbour that shook off Russian domination when the Soviet Union broke up in 1991.

In Ukraine, a sense of an eerie calm before the storm grew on Tuesday as the US embassy told its citizens to leave Ukraine because of fears of possible Russian missile strikes as the country celebrates its 31 years of independence on Wednesday. Read full story

Kyiv has warned Moscow of a powerful response if it launches such strikes.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali; Additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle, Mike Stone and Steve Holland; Editing by Grant McCool, Leslie Adler and David Gregorio.)