materiel

“It is because Russia is failing to achieve significant results on the battlefield that it resorts to drawing more manpower and drawing more materiel and kit from its allies,” Orysia Lutsevych, head of the Ukraine forum at the British think tank Chatham House, told a webinar put on by the organization.

The transfers were called “sales,” but as policy analyst Stephen Semler pointed out, “most if not all of this matériel is paid for by U.S. taxpayers — Israel uses much of the military aid Congress approves for it effectively as a gift card to buy U.S.-made weapons.”

Ukraine and its allies believe that Russia does not have the combat power to do more than take limited territory at a high cost in men and materiel.

The Air Force took the unusual step of quickly identifying a materiel failure as a potential cause of that crash, and a week after the crash all of the services had grounded the Osprey fleet.

The Biden administration presumably had matériel ready to ship, just waiting for congressional authorization, so the effects of this legislative breakthrough will be quick.