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President Joe Biden announced $800 million in emergency security assistance for Ukraine on Wednesday, hours after the country’s embattled President Volodymyr Zelensky made an emotional appeal to a joint session of Congress.
The latest aid brings the total U.S. security assistance committed to Ukraine to $1 billion in just the past week, and a total of $2 billion since the start of the Biden Administration.
“This could be a long and difficult battle,” Biden said in an address from the South Court Auditorium of the White House. “But the American people will be steadfast in our support of the people of Ukraine in the face of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s immoral, unethical attacks on civilian populations.
“We are united in our abhorrence of Putin’s depraved onslaught. And we’re going to continue to have their backs as they fight for their freedom, their democracy, their very survival.”
The assistance will take the form of direct transfers of equipment from the Department of Defense to the Ukrainian military to help them defend their country against Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified invasion.
The new $800 million assistance package includes:
- 800 Stinger anti-aircraft systems;
- 2,000 Javelin, 1,000 light anti-armor weapons, and 6,000 AT-4 anti-armor systems;
- 100 Tactical Unmanned Aerial Systems;
- 100 grenade launchers, 5,000 rifles, 1,000 pistols, 400 machine guns, and 400 shotguns;
- Over 20 million rounds of small arms ammunition and grenade launcher and mortar rounds;
- 25,000 sets of body armor; and 25,000 helmets.
“With this new security funding and the drawdown authorities in this bill, we’re moving further to augment support to the brave people of Ukraine as they defend their country,” Biden said at the signing.
The aid package, part of a massive $ 13.6 billion in new assistance for Ukraine written into the government spending bill that was signed into law Tuesday, was aimed at assuaging Zelenskyy’s plaintive outreach in an unprecedented address to US lawmakers in which he invoked Pearl Harbor and 9/11 to describe what his country is going through.
“Right now, the destiny of our country is being decided, the destiny of our people, whether Ukrainians will be free, whether they will be able to preserve their democracy,” Zelenskyy said in a speech from Kyiv to a joint session of US Congress, the first such virtual address by a foreign leader in US history.
Ukraine, he said, is grateful to the United States for its overwhelming support, but he called on Washington “to do more,” including imposing a no-fly zone over Ukraine to prevent Russian bombardment. “We need you right now,” he pleaded.
“To create a no-fly zone over Ukraine to save people, is that too much to ask?” Zelensky said, hyperbolically invoking 9/11 because “our country experiences the same every day.” If a no-fly zone is too much to ask, he offered an alternative: fighter jets, air defense systems, and relentless sanctions on Russia.
Biden has so far rejected pleas for a no-fly zone, fearing it will lead to a direct firefight with Russia.
Officials have been consistent that Biden opposes putting U.S. troops on the ground in Ukraine, refusing to set any “red lines” for what might change the calculus.
