The President of the United States visited the missile factory that provided aid to Ukraine

Reuters quoted the White House announcement as saying, US President Joe Biden will visit Lockheed Martin’s Javelin anti-tank guided missile production line in Alabama on May 3.

“President Biden will be traveling to Alabama to visit a Lockheed Martin facility responsible for the production of weapons systems such as anti-tank missiles that we are supplying to Ukraine.”the White House announcement said.

Lockheed Martin is currently one of many US defense contractors actively supporting the Biden administration to implement weapons aid packages for Ukraine. Many of the weapons being used by the Ukrainian military are manufactured by this contractor, such as Javelin anti-tank missiles.

According to CNN, Javelin missiles are among the weapons of the Ukrainian military with the highest demand today. In March, Ukraine mentioned to the US that it needed 500 Javelin anti-tank missiles per day.

However, Washington’s strong support of Javelin to Ukraine also leads to another problem that is the US military’s stockpile of anti-tank missiles is severely reduced. It is estimated that the US may have sent about a third of the Javelin missiles it has to Ukraine, replenishing these weapons will take at least 32 months.

In the last 3 years alone, the US military has only ordered more than 2,000 Javelin missiles from Lockheed Martin, which has adversely affected the production line of this weapon. If Washington wants more missiles, it will be forced to help Lockheed Martin expand its factories.

On April 26, the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee met to discuss the state of the defense industrial base and its ability to meet the needs of the armed forces.

The meeting revealed a serious supply problem, in part stemming from US support for Ukraine in Russia’s special military operation.

Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut warned that if the US continues to supply Ukraine with Javelin missiles at the current rate of domestic production, the US may have a significant shortage of this key weapon in the future. near future.

In addition to Javelin, America’s Stinger man-portable air defense missile also became a weapon that Ukraine “hunted” in the conflict with Russia. However, the supply of missiles is being exhausted and the production of more of this anti-aircraft weapon is facing significant obstacles.

Since Russia opened a special military operation in Ukraine, the US has provided more than $3.4 billion in military aid to the Kiev government. Recently, along with its European allies, Washington is expanding its aid package to Ukraine by adding heavy weapons such as self-propelled artillery, howitzers, tanks, and anti-aircraft weapons.