Biden seeks $500 million in aid for the Ukrainian government

The US Treasury Department has announced that the Biden administration will send Ukraine $500 million to help keep its government services running as the war with Russia completes two months.

The Biden administration will ask Congress to approve $500 million to cover the cost of Ukraine’s basic government services, including pensions, salaries and aid programs, the Treasury Department said on Thursday.

The aid package would be in addition to another $800 million in military support proposed by Biden which would also require approval from Congress.

Biden said Washington has almost exhausted the $13.6 billion in Ukraine aid approved in a March government funding bill. Congress must approve any new aide before the president can sign the bill and send out the money.

“This is money the government can help use to stabilize their economy, to support communities that have been devastated by the Russian onslaught and pay the brave workers that continue to provide essential services to the people of Ukraine,” Biden said in remarks from the White House Thursday morning.

Biden and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen separately on Thursday met with Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal in Washington, DC. 

“In order to sustain Ukraine for the duration of this fight, next week I’m going to have to be sending to Congress a supplemental budget request to keep weapons and ammunition flowing without interruption to the brave Ukrainian fighters, continue to deliver economic assistance to the Ukrainian people,” Biden said.

The new military aid package would include military equipment such as unmanned surface vehicles, Mi-17 helicopters, howitzers and protective equipment against possible chemical attacks, two US officials familiar with the matter told Reuters on Tuesday.

The US has already delivered $2.4 billion in military assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of Biden’s term in office, though much of that aid has come since Russia’s military operation against Ukraine began in late February.

This is while a report has revealed that the US government is struggling to track large quantities of “lethal aid” shipped to Ukraine in recent months amid raging conflict in the country.

Western countries, including the US, have in recent weeks dispatched many different types of sophisticated weapons to Ukraine, worth millions of dollars, which has provoked Russia to up the ante.

The first shipments of the latest round of US military assistance to the former Soviet republic, which includes heavier weapons systems, started arriving in the region over the weekend, reports said.

The recently approved $800 million in military aid to Ukraine includes Howitzer artillery systems, 40,000 artillery rounds, armored personnel vehicles, and other weapons.

It brings the total of military shipments to Ukraine since the start of the war in late February to $2.6bn.

SS