President Joe Biden on Thursday asked Congress to approve about $33 billion in additional aid for Ukraine, which would be on top of the $13.6 billion in military, economic and humanitarian assistance that U.S. lawmakers authorized last month.
“We have to do our part,” Biden said in a speech on the topic at the White House.
“The cost of this fight — it’s not cheap. But caving to aggression is going to be more costly, if we allow it to happen.”
The president’s new proposal for aid to Ukraine includes $20.4 billion in military and other security assistance, $8.5 billion in economic assistance and $3 billion in humanitarian assistance and food-security funding. The request represents what the Biden administration believes is needed to enable Ukraine’s success over the next five months of its war with Russia, administration officials told reporters ahead of the president’s speech.
U.S. lawmakers have indicated they’re ready to approve additional money, as there is bipartisan backing for Ukraine’s fight against Russia, which began its full-scale invasion of the country in late February.
Biden on Thursday weighed in on recent Russian rhetoric, after a reporter following his speech asked about accusations that NATO is going to war with Russia through a proxy — and about Moscow’s comments on the use of nuclear weapons.
“It’s more of a reflection not of the truth, but of their failure,” the U.S. president said. “So instead of saying that the Ukrainians, equipped with some capability to resist Russian forces, are doing this, they’ve got to tell their people the United States and all of NATO is engaged in taking out Russian troops and tanks.”
“No one should be making idle comments about the use of nuclear weapons,” Biden added. “It’s irresponsible.”
Biden noted that he’ll be in Alabama on Tuesday to visit a Lockheed Martin
LMT,
plant that manufactures the Javelin anti-tank missiles that have been sent to Ukraine, saying he’ll thank workers “for producing the weapons that helped stop Russia’s advances on Ukrainian cities like Kyiv.”
Also Thursday, Biden is sending a legislative proposal to Congress that administration officials say will enhance the U.S. government’s ability to hold Russia’s government and Russian oligarchs accountable for the country’s war on Ukraine.
That proposal includes measures that would streamline the process for seizure of oligarch assets and enable the proceeds to flow to Ukraine, according to a White House statement. Other measures would strengthen the U.S. government’s ability to investigate and prosecute sanctions evasion.
Ukraine said Thursday that Russia’s offensive in the east had picked up momentum, and United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres visited towns outside the capital of Kyiv where evidence of mass killings of civilians was found after Russia’s retreat from the area.
DJIA,
gained Thursday, boosted by results from Facebook parent Meta Platforms
FB,
that weren’t as bad as anticipated, as investors largely brushed off data showing a contraction in first-quarter gross domestic product.