Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky praised a $61 billion military aid package that was finally approved by the US House of Representatives after months of delays.
The US House of Representatives on Saturday approved long-delayed military aid to Ukraine in a rare show of bipartisan unity, while bolstering the defenses of Israel and Taiwan and threatening to ban TikTok, which is owned by China.
The four bills in the $95 billion package, which included the $61 billion aid package for Ukraine, passed overwhelmingly in quick succession, although they leave the future of the Republican House speaker in some doubt. Mike Johnson, as he seeks to defend himself from the angry far right. detractors.
US President Joe Biden said in a statement that the legislation would ‘provide critical support to Israel and Ukraine; provide desperately needed humanitarian aid to Gaza, Sudan, Haiti and elsewhere… and strengthen security and stability in the Indo-Pacific.’
He praised the legislators who came together regardless of political parties “to answer the call of history.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (pictured, left) praised a $61 billion military aid package that was finally approved by the US House of Representatives after months of delays.
Rescuers and workers clear debris in a turbine hall filled with burned equipment at a power plant of energy provider DTEK, destroyed after an attack, at an undisclosed location in Ukraine on April 19, 2024.
Workers clear debris in a turbine hall filled with charred equipment at a power plant of energy provider DTE.
Zelensky welcomed the $61 billion for his country, saying the military and economic assistance would “save thousands and thousands of lives.”
Not surprisingly, Russia took the opposite view.
“It will further enrich the United States of America and further ruin Ukraine, by killing even more Ukrainians because of the Kiev regime,” presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, state news agency TASS reported.
The US Senate will consider the bill on Tuesday. Senate approval would then send the measure to Biden for his signature.
The bills are the product of months of acrimonious negotiations, pressure from U.S. allies and repeated pleas for help from Zelensky.
The United States has been Ukraine’s main military backer in its war against Russia, but Congress has not approved large-scale funding for its ally for nearly a year and a half, mainly due to bipartisan bickering.
Biden and Democratic lawmakers in Congress have been pushing for a major new arms package for Ukraine for months.
But Republicans, influenced by the party’s presidential candidate, Donald Trump, have been reluctant to provide funding to kyiv for the protracted conflict.
Ukrainian servicemen of the 28th Separate Mechanized Brigade fire a mortar at Russian forces on the front line near the town of Bakhmut
A Ukrainian officer from the 56th Mariupol Separate Motorized Infantry Brigade fires rockets from a pickup truck at Russian positions on the front line near Bakhmut.
Ukrainian servicemen of the 93rd brigade fire a 2S1 Gvozdika self-propelled howitzer towards Russian troops
Ukrainian soldiers carry shells to fire on Russian positions on the front line.
War funding has become a point of contention ahead of November’s presidential election in which Biden is expected to face Trump once again.
Johnson, after months of hesitation, finally threw his support behind the aid package for Ukraine.
“To put it bluntly, I’d rather send bullets to Ukraine than to American guys,” Johnson said.
The handful of far-right Republicans who had threatened to overthrow Johnson if he pushed for a vote in Ukraine appeared to back down Saturday, at least temporarily.
“In fact, I’m going to let my colleagues go home and listen to their constituents” about their anger over the vote, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said on CNN.
The Ukraine bill also allows Biden to seize and sell Russian assets and provide money to Ukraine to finance reconstruction, a measure that has been adopted by other G7 nations.
More than $6 billion in frozen assets are in US banks and, under the recently approved REPO Law, Biden will be able to confiscate them and transfer them to a special fund for Ukraine.
The $6 billion comes in the form of the Russian government’s foreign currency reserves, invested over several years to keep the ruble stable.
In total, Russia invested $300 billion in foreign currency, and almost all of this has been frozen by Western governments. Much of it is located in Germany, France and Belgium.