Biden seeks $33B for Ukraine, signaling long-term commitment
President Joe Biden asked Congress for $33 billion to bolster Ukraine’s fight against Russia, signaling a burgeoning and longhaul American commitment as Moscow’s invasion and the international tensions it has inflamed show no signs of receding.
The package has about $20 billion in defense spending for Ukraine and U.S. allies in the region and $8.5 billion to keep Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government providing services and paying salaries. There’s $3 billion in global food and humanitarian programs, including money to help Ukrainian refugees who’ve fled to the U.S. and to prod American farmers to grow wheat and other crops to replace the vast amounts of food Ukraine normally produces.
The package, which administration officials estimated would last five months, is more than twice the size of the initial $13.6 billion aid measure that Congress enacted early last month and now is almost drained. With the bloody war dragging into its third month, the measure was designed to signal to Russian President Vladimir Putin that U.S. weaponry and other streams of assistance are not going away.
“The world must and will hold Russia accountable,” Biden said. “And as long as the assaults and atrocities continue, we’re going to continue to supply military assistance.”
Zelenskyy thanked the U.S. in his nightly video address to his nation. “President Biden rightly said today that this step is not cheap,” he said. “But the negative consequences for the whole world from Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and against democracy are so massive that by comparison the U.S. support is necessary.”