The Pentagon has established a Senior Integration Group to coordinate aid for Ukraine

Pentagon leaders have set up a high-level team to cut through its notoriously unwieldy bureaucracy and provide assistance to Ukraine more quickly.

According to a memo obtained by the military newspaper Defense News and sources familiar with the matter, the Pentagon has modeled a new team dealing with the expedited delivery of military aid to Ukraine.

The team is modeled on a group used to speed up the supplies to the troops in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria.

It is called the Senior Integration Group-Ukraine (SIG), and its mandate is to hustle military equipment to Ukraine from its own stocks, replenish those stocks, coordinate aid with NATO, support partner nations, and address humanitarian issues.

The SIG-Ukraine is adapted from the little-known Warfighter Senior Integration Group, which the Pentagon launched in the middle of the war on terror to answer the urgent needs of battlefield commanders.

Former officials state that the SIG format derives its power from the involvement of senior leaders and has long been a way to make and implement decisions within days that might otherwise take months or years.

The SIG Ukraine is meant to respond to needs identified by the U.S. European Command and would handle items procured under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative.

“The SIG addresses items such as the latest operational needs, and resolves issues impeding the urgent material and logistics requirements that is required to support EUCOM and support to Ukraine,” said Jessica Maxwell, a Pentagon spokeswoman.

The U.S. is leading a flood of western weaponry into Ukraine that’s helped blunt Russia’s initial offensive and is expected to be critical in the next phase of fighting in the east and south of Ukraine.

The United States has already delivered over 130,000 of 155-mm shells for the M777 howitzers, which is almost two-thirds of the planned number.

“As for 155-mm shells, 64% of the total amount has been delivered. I would like to remind you that under the last announcement of the $150 million package, the total number would be 209,000 of the 155 mm caliber. Thus, over 130,000 of them were already delivered to Ukraine,” said the U.S. Defense Department spokesman.

In addition, a Pentagon spokesman confirmed that three of the eleven dedicated Mi-17 helicopters were transferred to Ukraine. And one of them, according to the Ukrainian side, has already carried out two combat missions.