(Washington) Joe Biden will announce $800 million in additional security assistance to Ukraine on Wednesday to help the country deal with the Russian invasion, a White House official said Tuesday evening.
Posted yesterday at 10:36 p.m.
The American president must make this announcement after a video intervention by his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky before the United States Congress. This brings “the total announced in the past week alone to $1 billion,” the official said on condition of anonymity.
“In total, the president has authorized $2 billion in security since the administration began [Biden]. The United States remains by far Ukraine’s largest security aid donor,” he said.
According to his official schedule, Joe Biden is due to speak on “United States assistance to Ukraine” at 11:45 a.m. (1545 GMT) on Wednesday.
Mr. Zelensky intervenes at 1 p.m. GMT before the members of the American Congress, whose members regularly urge President Biden to toughen his tone against Russia.
The Ukrainian president had already exchanged with more than a hundred elected officials and American senators by videoconference on March 5, pleading for a toughening of economic sanctions against Russia.
A few days later, Congress adopted a new federal budget including a staggering envelope of nearly 14 billion dollars for the Ukrainian crisis, supposed to allow Kyiv to protect its electricity network, fight cyberattacks and equip itself with defensive weapons.
The envelope “will provide food, medicine, shelter, support for the more than two million refugees and resources for the Ukrainian economy which is in ruins”, had detailed the leader of the Democrats in the Senate, Chuck Schumer.
“It will also allow arms transfers such as [lance-missiles] Javelin and Stinger, it will reassure and strengthen NATO,” he added.
According to the White House official, Washington has already supplied Ukraine over the past year with about 2,600 Javelin anti-tank weapons and more than 600 Stinger anti-aircraft missiles.