Joe Biden is asking Congress to approve another $20bn in military aid to Ukraine, significantly ramping up the US contribution to the battle against Russian occupation.
Biden will also ask for $8.5bn in economic aid to Kyiv and $3bn in humanitarian relief, as well as funds to help increase US production of food crops and strategic minerals to offset the impact of the war in Ukraine on global supplies.
The total request for supplemental spending comes to $33bn. The last supplemental request approved by Congress in March was $13.6bn.
In a letter to the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, Biden said:
What I want to make clear to the Congress and the American people is this: the cost of failing to stand up to violent aggression in Europe has always been higher than the cost of standing firm against such attacks.
The new military assistance the congressional funding will finance will include:
- More artillery, armoured vehicles, as well as anti-tank missiles and anti-aircraft systems.
- Help to build up Ukraine’s cyber warfare capabilities.
- More intelligence sharing.
- Support to increase Ukraine’s ability to produce munitions.
- Assistance in clearing landmines and other explosives and in Ukraine’s defence against chemical, biological and dirty bomb attack.
- Assistance to clear landmines, improvised explosive devices, and other explosive remnants of war and for the government of Ukraine in securing and addressing threats related to chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear materials.
- Further building up US presence on Nato’s eastern flank.
- The package of proposals the administration is sending to Congress also includes measures to strengthen the hand of the justice department in pursuing Kremlin-aligned oligarchs.
Biden said the measures would allow for “expanded and expedited measures for investigating, prosecuting, and forfeiting assets of Russian oligarchs to be used for the benefit of Ukraine”.
Source - The Guardian
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