US President Joe Biden on Thursday asked the US Congress for US$33 billion to bolster Ukraine’s fight against Russia, signaling a burgeoning and long-haul commitment as Moscow’s invasion and the international tensions it has inflamed show no signs of receding.
The package has about US$20 billion in defense spending for Ukraine and US allies in the region, and US$8.5 billion to keep Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s government providing services and paying salaries.
There is US$3 billion in global food and humanitarian programs, including money to help Ukrainian refugees who have fled to the US, and to prod US farmers to grow wheat and other crops to replace the vast amounts of food Ukraine normally produces.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The package, which Biden administration officials estimated would last five months, is more than twice the size of the initial US$13.6 billion aid measure that the US Congress enacted early last month and now is almost drained.
With the bloody invasion of Ukraine dragging into its third month, the measure is designed to signal to Russian President Vladimir Putin that US weaponry and other streams of assistance are not going away.
“The world must and will hold Russia accountable, and as long as the assaults and atrocities continue, we’re going to continue to supply military assistance,” Biden said.
Zelenskiy thanked the US in his nightly video address to his nation.
“President Biden rightly said today that this step is not cheap, but the negative consequences for the whole world from Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and against democracy are so massive that by comparison the US support is necessary,” Zelenskiy said.
Biden’s request to the US Congress comes with powerful Russian offensives underway in eastern and southern Ukraine, and pleas from Zelenskiy for long-range and offensive weapons.
The US and other nations have pledged to step up deliveries of such equipment, and summaries of Biden’s plan mention artillery, armored vehicles and anti-air and anti-tank weapons and munitions.
Biden said the new package “addresses the needs of the Ukrainian military during the crucial weeks and months ahead,” and begins a transition to longer-term security assistance that is “going to help Ukraine deter and continue to defend against Russian aggression.”
The proposal came after Russia halted gas supplies to two NATO allies, Poland and Bulgaria, increasing anxieties that the invasion and its repercussions, in one form or another, could ultimately spread elsewhere.
Biden promised that the US would work to support its allies’ energy needs.
“We will not let Russia intimidate or blackmail their way out of the sanctions,” he said.
Bipartisan support in the US Congress for Ukraine is strong and there is little doubt that lawmakers would approve the aid, but Republicans said they were examining the proposal’s details, including its balance between defense and other expenditure, and would not reflexively rally behind Biden’s US$33 billion figure.
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