This is a little more than the general budget of the Ministry of the Interior, in France, for the whole of 2022. American President Joe Biden asked the American Congress on Thursday for a colossal extension of 33 billion dollars in aid for Ukraine, including further arms deliveries. The United States cannot afford to remain passive in the face of the conflict in Ukraine, he justified.
In total therefore, 20 billion must thus go to the supply of armaments, comprising seven times more than the nevertheless impressive quantities of arms and ammunition already supplied to Ukraine since the Russian invasion, launched on February 24. The United States is simply the country that provides (by far) the most aid to Ukraine. So far, more than 7 billion dollars had been released, of which about half for the purchase of weapons.
kyiv has already received ten anti-tank weapons for each Russian armored vehicle, the American president also boasted during his speech at the White House. But the United States “does not attack” Russia, he assured. They “help Ukraine defend itself” against Russian “atrocities and aggression”. The Kremlin had earlier warned against these arms deliveries which “threaten European security”.
For Ukraine, the increase in aid is urgent: more than two months after the start of the conflict, Russia has redoubled its assaults on the south and east of the country, which suffered heavy fire from bombs on Thursday. After being confined to weapons seen as defensive, Washington is now sending artillery, helicopters and drones to the Ukrainian army, whose soldiers are trained in their handling in the United States or in third countries before returning to the front.
Waiting for unlock
These 33 billion additional aid must now be released by the US Parliament. No small feat. Discussions between elected officials, whose support for kyiv is nevertheless unanimous, are currently stumbling over the content of the law supposed to extend military aid: the Democrats want to insert an amendment in it to increase the budget for the fight against -Covid in the United States, which the Republicans categorically refuse. If Democratic Senator Leader Chuck Schumer tries to tie the two together, “it will likely doom both” to failure, a Republican Senate leadership has warned.
The White House will “work in all directions” to obtain this passage through Congress, promised the spokesperson for the executive, Jen Psaki, insisting on the importance of the rise in the niche of Joe Biden. The president will probably return to the subject by visiting a Lockheed Martin factory in the state of Alabama next Tuesday, where the Javelin anti-tank missile launchers are produced, weapons that have become the symbol of Ukrainian resistance.
Note that 8.5 billion dollars will be specifically allocated to support the Ukrainian economy, for food, energy and health.
Liquidate Russian assets
The Biden administration wants to increase the pressure on the Russian president and his entourage by proposing to liquidate the “kleptocratic” assets seized from Russian oligarchs and to transfer the proceeds to kyiv “to compensate for the damage caused by the Russian aggression “, said the White House in a press release.
These assets seized amount to date, for the countries of the European Union (EU) alone, to more than 30 billion dollars, including nearly 7 billion in luxury goods belonging to the oligarchs (yachts, works of art , real estate and helicopters), this press release indicates.
The United States has “sanctioned and blocked ships and planes worth more than a billion, as well as freezing hundreds of millions of dollars of assets of Russian elites in American accounts”. And this month Spain granted a US request to seize a $90 million superyacht owned by Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin.
These punitive measures should not weaken. The White House has promised to continue to “crack down” on “sanctions avoidance” maneuvers by strengthening American capacities to investigate and prosecute oligarchs tempted to evade them.
After the end of the war in Ukraine, “the aggressor will have to pay for the reconstruction” of this country, the Deputy Prime Minister of Slovakia, Veronika Remisova, told the UN on Thursday, judging also that in the “long term” it will be necessary to “integrate” Russia into the community of nations.