How much money does Zelenskyy have saved? He dares to invest 50 billion US dollars to order American weapons. The Defense Express reported that the Pentagon has provided Ukraine with military aid totaling 66 billion US dollars in equipment.
Now, Zelenskyy wants to personally spend money to order weapons worth 50 billion US dollars. Mainly, he wants to order 10 Patriot air defense missile systems, and may also want F-16EF fighters and second-hand M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles.
The Defense Express said that American weapons are not cheap! Poland ordered 2 Patriot missile systems (16 missile launchers), 2 AN/MPQ-65 radars, and 208 Patriot PAC-3 interceptor missiles, which were priced at 4.75 billion US dollars.
If it's 10 sets with 80 missile launchers and 2000 Patriot missiles, it would be worth at least 25 billion US dollars. However, Russia and North Korea produce more than 2500-3000 ballistic missiles annually, and Ukraine still gets bombed.
The new F-16 Block 70/72 fighter costs as much as 279 million US dollars. The Philippines ordered 20 of them, which was quoted at 5.5 billion US dollars. Even Argentina spent 300 million US dollars on 24 second-hand F-16A fighters and was charged an additional 100 million US dollars for modification fees.
If they really buy 20-30 new F-16 Block 70/72 fighters, Russia still has at least 100-200 Su-35 and Su-57 stealth fighters waiting, and it still cannot reverse the situation.
Second-hand M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles are not cheap either. The United States gave Greece 200 M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles for free, but Greece did not dare to accept them. Because the refurbishment costs, re-equipping costs, transportation costs, etc., required 1.8 billion US dollars. This means that each second-hand M2 infantry fighting vehicle costs 9 million US dollars, enough to buy 2 Russian T-90A tanks.
Original source: https://www.toutiao.com/article/1829370795576332/
Disclaimer: The article only represents the author's personal views.