WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden has asked Congress for $33 billion to fund humanitarian and military aid to Ukraine through September of this year, he said Thursday.
The massive aid package is accompanied by a proposal for Congress to amend several longstanding criminal laws to make it easier for the US to sell assets seized from sanctioned Russian oligarchs.
The $33 billion includes a request for $20.4 billion in additional military and security assistance to Ukraine, as well as additional money to fund US efforts to bolster European security in cooperation with NATO allies.
“It is not cheap. But giving in to aggression will be more costly if we allow it to happen,” Biden said Thursday.
“Either we stand with the Ukrainian people as they defend their country, or we stand by as the Russians continue their atrocities and aggression in Ukraine every day,” Biden said.
The administration said this is aimed at equipping kyiv and European partners with additional artillery, armored vehicles, and anti-armor and anti-aircraft capabilities, accelerating cyber capabilities and advanced air defense systems, and helping to eliminate landmines and explosive devices. improvised.
Another part of the $33 billion is a sum of $8.5 billion to help support the Ukrainian economy.
That total will help fund the Ukrainian government, support food, energy and health care services for the Ukrainian people, and counter Russian disinformation and propaganda narratives, Biden said.
Some of it is also earmarked to support small and medium-sized agricultural businesses during the fall harvest and for natural gas purchases.
This money is likely to come in the form of direct financial assistance, a relatively rare form of international aid.
Most of the foreign aid is things that have already been bought, like weapons and food. It can also come in the form of experience, humanitarian workers, or loans. Direct financial support is rarely provided. This makes it the closest thing to cash from one government to another.
Biden said direct US aid to Ukraine’s economy “will allow pensions and social support to be paid to the Ukrainian people, so they have something in their pockets.”
Another $3 billion will help provide more traditional humanitarian assistance in the form of wheat and other staples to people outside of Ukraine who have been affected by the dramatic increase in food prices caused by the blockade of Ukrainian ships by Russia that would otherwise be exporting millions of metric dollars. tons of cereals worldwide.
The supplemental budget request to Congress is expected to win broad support among Republicans and Democrats, even as it pushes total US spending on Ukraine to more than $36 billion in just 9 months.
The other part of Biden’s package on Thursday is a broad set of proposals to Congress to change current laws to make it easier for the Treasury and State Departments to comply with the hundreds of individual sanctions that have been imposed on oligarchs, businesses and officials. Russian governments. since the beginning of the war.
Under federal law, to sell seized assets, prosecutors must first prove that they are the proceeds of a crime. Currently, being a sanctioned Russian oligarch is not a crime.
Legal scholars have pointed out that without a crime, the oligarchs could demand the return of their property and would have a good chance of winning in court. Under Biden’s proposal, Congress would create a new federal crime of knowingly possessing profits made directly from corrupt dealings with the Russian government.
The two-part request to Congress comes as the war enters its third month and as US military leaders say their strategic objectives in Ukraine are changing to reflect a medium- and long-term goal.
For the immediate future, the goal is to arm the Ukrainian forces so that they can secure an outright victory in the war by driving Russia out of Ukraine altogether.
But in the longer term, the US now seeks more broadly to weaken Russia’s entire power structure by pinning down its troops in a war of attrition while crippling its economy with sanctions and trade embargoes.
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