OREANDA-NEWS US President Joe Biden has announced nearly $3 billion in additional military aid to Ukraine, boasting that it is the "biggest" commitment yet.The new assistance will allow Kiev to get new air defense systems, artillery and munitions, anti-drone aerial systems and radar, according to the president.

"I know this independence day is bittersweet for many Ukrainians as thousands have been killed or wounded, millions have been displaced from their homes, and so many others have fallen victim to Russian atrocities and attacks. But six months of relentless attacks have only strengthened Ukrainians' pride in themselves, in their country, and in their thirty-one years of independence. Today and every day, we stand with the Ukrainian people to proclaim that the darkness that drives autocracy is no match for the flame of liberty that lights the souls of free people everywhere," the release added.

US media reported on the new aid package on Tuesday, with the new support coming from the USAI funding mechanism. Ukraine celebrates Independence Day on August 24, with the holiday commemorating the day that the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR declared independence from the USSR, a day after the failure of the three-day attempt by Communist hardliners to seize power from Mikhail Gorbachev and prevent the breakup of the country in August 1991, better known in the West and among Russian liberal circles as a 'coup attempt'.The $3 billion in new military assistance is the latest NATO injection of cash into the Ukrainian crisis. Since the pro-Western coup d'etat in Kiev in 2014, Washington and its Canadian and European allies have sent tens of billions of military and financial support to the country, with the aid ramping up dramatically in February 2022, after Russia launched a operation to "demilitarize" and "de-Nazify" Ukraine and to preempt what Moscow has said were plans by Kiev to try to snuff out the fledgling Donbass republics.The West's assistance to Ukraine has taken flak from multiple corners, with Russia expressing fears that the guns, bullets, bullets, bombs and advanced weapons systems entering the country would be stolen by arms traffickers and sent abroad. Earlier this month, CBS News released and then curiously deleted a documentary which showed volunteers on the ground complaining that as little as thirty percent of the military assistance sent to Kiev was actually making it to the front.