The Australian government has announced a new $110m assistance package as the next round of support for Ukraine, including military vehicles, ammunition and humanitarian funding.
The government also said the upheaval in Russia over the weekend – in which the head of the Wagner mercenary group attempted an armed revolt – was a sign of division and called into question the invasion of Ukraine.
The package of support for Ukraine unveiled on Monday includes $100m in military assistance and $10m for humanitarian aid.
“This package responds to Ukraine’s requests for vehicles and ammunition, and will make a tangible difference on the battlefield,” the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said.
The government has committed 70 military vehicles, including 28 M113 armoured vehicles, 14 special operations vehicles, 28 MAN 40M medium trucks and 14 trailers; a new supply of 105mm artillery ammunition; and $10m to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs – for the Ukraine Humanitarian Fund – to assist in the provision of shelter, health services, water and sanitation.
“Ukrainian families, the elderly and children have borne a terrible cost from Russia’s invasion. Australia’s $10m contribution to the Ukraine Humanitarian Fund will support their needs,” Albanese said.
“We support international efforts to ensure [Russian president Vladimir] Putin’s aggression fails and that Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity prevails.”
The government said the latest commitment took Australia’s total contribution to Ukraine to $790m, including $610m in military assistance.
Albanese was joined by the defence minister, Richard Marles, and the foreign minister, Penny Wong, to make the announcement in Canberra.
The prime minister said the cabinet signed off on the support package on Monday morning, and the timing was unaffected by the weekend events in which the Wagner chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, vowed to lead his troops towards Moscow.
Prigozhin later agreed to leave Russia for Belarus as part of a deal to end his armed revolt.
Responding to a question about the implications for Putin, Wong said: “This does demonstrate the divisions in Russia.”
“It does call into question the decision which we have all criticised and which we are standing here to oppose today, which was the decision to illegally, immorally invade Ukraine,” she said.
Wong said the Australian government would continue to monitor developments but urged any Australians who remained in Russia to leave if it was safe to do so.
Marles said he expected the war to be “protracted” but Australia would stand with Kyiv “for as long as it takes for Ukraine to resolve this conflict on their terms”.
“What is at issue in Ukraine today is the sanctity of the global rules-based order, and it is very important that Australians understand that this engages our national interest,” he said.
Defence is expected to fund the new package from within existing resources. Guardian Australia has been told some of the stocks are surplus to current Australian defence force requirements while some were capabilities that were due to be replaced.
A source said the 105mm ammunition was no longer used by Australia but was highly suitable for use by Ukrainian armed forces.
Labor had been under increasing domestic political pressure to approve the next package of support for Ukraine, with the Coalition recently urging it not to delay aid until Albanese attends the Nato summit in Lithuania.
In February, the government announced it would will send drones to Ukraine and expand sanctions against Russian government, military and media figures.
That package was announced on the first anniversary of Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine. Since then Ukraine has mounted a public campaign for further assistance, including Hawkei vehicles.
But Albanese said the government had received ADF advice that offering Hawkei vehicles “would not be the best way to provide assistance to Ukraine”.
In the most recent round of Senate estimates hearings, Defence officials said the Australian government was “still working through the rectification of an ABS braking issue” and supply chain issues.
“The [Hawkei] capability is at quite a critical stage right now,” the head of land systems, Maj Gen Andrew Bottrell, told the hearing.
“We can’t even roll it out to Defence, given those other factors, let alone sustain it on operations. So it’s been my advice into Defence that we could not sustain this vehicle overseas and we certainly couldn’t sustain it if we were also trying to roll it out to the Australian Defence Force.”
The federal opposition leader, Peter Dutton, said the support package “should have been bigger”. “This has taken too long and it’s too little,” Dutton said on Monday.
