US House passes defense bill, offering Ukraine $300mn in military aid

The US House of Representatives has proposed $300 million in military aid for Ukraine as part of a massive $770-billion annual defense budget that also includes bids to counter Russia and China.

The compromised version of the fiscal 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), passed by the Democratic-controlled House on Tuesday, gives the US military $25 billion more that what President Joe Biden had requested and reflects a five-percent increase compared to last year’s military budget, already by far the largest in the world.

The bill — which includes further purchases of warplanes and warships, in addition to strategies for what it deems as geopolitical threats — is closely watched by a wide range of industry and other interests because of its extensive scope and since it is one of the only major pieces of legislation that becomes law every year.

This year’s defense bill was released shortly after Biden and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, held two hours of virtual talks on Ukraine and other disputes.

The bill’s proposed $300 million for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative is intended to provide support for Kiev’s armed forces. It further includes $4 billion for the European Defense Initiative and $150 million for Baltic security cooperation — all aimed at countering a perceived Russian threat.

The House lawmakers, however, omitted some measures that had strong support in the US Congress, including a proposal to impose mandatory sanctions over the Russian Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline and a plan to subject American women to the military draft for the first time.

The development came days after Russia fiercely rejected new allegations by US media outlets that it is planning a large-scale attack on Ukraine and insisted that Washington was seeking to aggravate the situation through blaming Moscow at a time of tensions between the two neighbors.

“The (United) States is conducting a special operation to aggravate the situation around Ukraine while shifting the responsibility onto Russia,” said Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Saturday. “It is based on provocative actions near Russia's borders accompanied by accusatory rhetoric.”

A recent report by the Washington Post cited US officials and an intelligence document as claiming that Russia was planning a multi-front offensive against Ukraine involving up to 175,000 troops as soon as next year.

SS