Biden proposes a US$33b package for more aid, arms
US leader also wants lawmakers to approve laws to allow seized assets of oligarchs to repay Kyiv
US President Joe Biden has proposed a huge US$33 billion package for supporting and arming Ukraine, saying that “caving” in to Russia is not an option for the West as the war stretches into a third month.
Speaking in the White House, Biden also proposed new laws to allow using assets stripped from Russian oligarchs under unprecedented sanctions to compensate Ukraine for the destruction wreaked by the invading Russians.
He acknowledged the dramatic costs of US backing for Ukraine, but said there was no real choice in the struggle with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“The cost of this fight is not cheap. But caving to aggression is going to be more costly if we allow it to happen,” he said.
Reflecting the scale of the US help to Ukraine, which is drubbing the larger and more heavily armed Russian forces, Biden confirmed that the United States has already sent 10 tank-killing weapons for every Russian tank sent into the country.
He pushed back against increasingly heated claims by Russian officials and state media that Moscow is fighting the entire West, rather than only Ukraine.
“We’re not attacking Russia. We are helping Ukraine defend itself against Russian aggression,” Biden said.
Calling rhetoric in Moscow about the possibility of nuclear warfare a sign of “desperation”, Biden said “no one should be making idle comments about the use of nuclear weapons or the possibility that they would use that. It’s irresponsible”.
And after Russian state gas giant Gazprom announced it was cutting supplies to Nato and EU members Bulgaria and Poland, Biden said the US was working to boost European energy supplies.
“We will not let Russia intimidate or blackmail their way out of these sanctions. We will not allow them to use their oil and gas to avoid consequences for their aggression,” Biden said.
The bulk of the proposed US$33 billion package will be “US$20 billion in military and other security assistance. This means weapons and ammunition flowing to the Ukrainian people,” a senior US official said.
A further US$8.5 billion in economic aid would “help the government of Ukraine respond to the immediate crisis”, while some US$3 billion was proposed to fund humanitarian help and address the global food supply resulting from Russia’s onslaught against Ukraine, a major wheat exporter, the official said.
The proposed package also includes funding to address economic disruptions in the US and elsewhere, ranging from the impact on food supplies to the availability of critical components used in hi-tech manufacturing.
The US Congress needs to approve the request and while both Republicans and Biden’s Democratic Party have signalled they are keen to keep backing Ukraine, a dispute over the president’s request for an unrelated US$22.5 billion Covid-19 pandemic package threatens to complicate the approval process.
“I don’t care how they do it, I’m sending both up,” Biden said, but “we must also not let our guard down in our fight against Covid-19.”
We’re not attacking Russia, we’re helping Ukraine defend itself against Russian aggression
US PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN
In parallel with Western military help, Washington is leading a sanctions onslaught designed to isolate Russia and pressure Putin.
Biden announced a proposal to ratchet up pressure on Putin’s billionaire inner circle, with enhanced procedures allowing oligarchs’ assets to be “sold off” to “remedy the harm Russia caused and to help build Ukraine”.
To date, European allies have frozen more than US$30 billion in Russian assets, including almost US$7 billion in luxury goods including yachts, art, real estate and helicopters.
The US had “sanctioned and blocked vessels and aircraft worth over US$1 billion, as well as frozen hundreds of millions of dollars of assets belonging to Russian elites in US accounts”, the White House said.
One of the latest seizures was of a US$90 million superyacht belonging to Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg.