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Joe Biden has told Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Washington will rapidly escalate military aid to Ukraine as soon as Congress gives final approval to a $95bn security funding package this week.
The US president made the pledge to Zelenskyy during a call on Monday, according to the White House, two days after the Republican-controlled House of Representatives led by Speaker Mike Johnson voted to approve the assistance after months of delay.
The bill includes $60bn in aid for Ukraine, as well as funding for Israel and the Indo-Pacific, and is expected to pass the Senate on Tuesday or Wednesday and enacted into law by Biden later in the week.
“President Biden shared that his administration will quickly provide significant new security assistance packages to meet Ukraine’s urgent battlefield and air defence needs as soon as the Senate passes the national security supplemental and he signs it into law,” said the White House account of the call with Zelenskyy.
The new security aid is expected to include long-range ATACMS missiles, as well as ammunition and other weapons systems, though White House and Pentagon officials have not offered precise details of what will be in the next package. Zelenskyy cheered the looming arrival of new military aid in his own account of the call with Biden.
Zelenskyy said: “The president has assured me that the package will be approved quickly and that it will be powerful, strengthening our air defence as well as long-range and artillery capabilities.”
Ukraine’s president also added: “Everything has been decided in the ATACMS negotiations for Ukraine. I am grateful to President Biden, Congress, and the entire United States.”
Biden’s and Zelenskyy’s comments highlight how Washington and Kyiv are trying to make up for lost time in the effort to boost Ukrainian military capabilities, after the delays in US funding caused setbacks on the battlefield against Russian forces.
Analysts at the Eurasia Group said the breakthrough on Capitol Hill would “substantially improve Ukrainian military prospects for stabilising the situation” in the eastern region of the country where they have suffered most.
“Low stocks of artillery and air defence ammunition have hurt the Ukrainian military’s ability to defend against Russian advances in Donetsk and drone and missile attacks against cities and power infrastructure nationwide,” they said.
Biden had been pleading for Congress to approve new funding for Ukraine since August of last year, including during an Oval Office address in October. He also opened his State of the Union address in March by speaking about the urgency of helping Kyiv defeat the Russian invasion.
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