US companies Lockheed Martin and Raytheon have signed a contract with the Pentagon for the purchase and production of Javelin anti-tank missile systems, according to media reports citing a press release from the US Army.
The total amount of the contract is $7.2Bln.
No delivery date or number of units has been revealed, but the order is due to be with the Army between the years 2023 and 2026.
The US military, which is responsible for the logistics of the troops, says it is working with industry to shorten the production and delivery of Javelin systems to restock the troops' shortfall as quickly as possible.
According to analysts, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin at present together produce around 400 Javelin systems per month. Previously, the figure was 1,000 kits a year.
Since the start of Russian special military operation, the United States has supplied more than 10,000 Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine. According to a rough estimate, Ukraine has received one third of the US stock of anti-tank missile systems of this modification.
Earlier, it was reported that the Ukrainian Armed Forces had problems maintaining Javelin missile launchers. They are more difficult to use than other types of portable missiles, and require batteries and an argon cooling agent to operate.
In April, the Pentagon said it awarded a $215Mln contract to Aerojet Rocketdyne to expand and modernize the production of Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (GMLRS), Javelins and Stingers for Ukraine.