WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The US on Thursday announced the approval of an $825-million sale of 3,350 Extended Range Attack Munition air-launched missiles and related equipment to Ukraine.

Kyiv will make the purchase with funding from Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway and a loan guarantee from the US, the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) said in a statement.

“This proposed sale will improve Ukraine’s capability to meet current and future threats by further equipping it to conduct self-defense and regional security missions,” DSCA said.

And it “will support the foreign policy and national security objectives of the US by improving the security of a partner country that is a force for political stability and economic progress in Europe,” the agency added.

The US State Department approved the possible sale of the missiles to Ukraine and the DSCA provided the required notification to the US Congress, which still needs to sign off on the transaction.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin launched the full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine in 2022 and has shown little willingness to end the conflict despite pressure from the US.

Under former President Joe Biden, Washington committed to providing more than $65 billion in military assistance to Ukraine, but his successor Donald Trump — long skeptical of assistance for Kyiv — has instead pushed for Europe to play a greater role in funding further military aid.

Moscow scales back demand

Meanwhile, Moscow has scaled back its territorial demands, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said.

Russia occupies around one-fifth of Ukraine’s territory, and has claimed to have annexed five of the country’s regions — Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, along with Crimea, which it seized in 2014.

At peace talks in Istanbul this year, Russia’s negotiators demanded Ukraine pull out of those regions entirely as a precondition to ending the conflict that started with Russia’s 2022 invasion.

But following a summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump, Fidan said, “Now they have given up on that demand and are staying on the contact lines, except for one region ... There is currently a preliminary (agreement) regarding the return of 25 to 30 percent of Donetsk and maintaining the contact line in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson,” Fidan said in an interview with TGRT Haber on Thursday.

It was not clear who that agreement was between.

Ukraine has repeatedly rejected territorial concessions, though President Volodymyr Zelensky has previously said Kyiv would need to secure the return of land through diplomacy, not on the battlefield.