President Joe Biden will ask Congress Thursday for an additional $33 billion in military and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, which officials say could fund war there for the next five months.
“The President’s funding request is what we believe he needs to help Ukraine thrive in the next five months of this war,” a senior administration official told reporters at a briefing call.
The money includes $20.4 billion in additional security and military aid, $8.5 billion in economic aid and $3 billion in humanitarian assistance.
Humanitarian assistance includes funds for high thermal blankets, medical supplies, emergency health kits, safe drinking water, direct food assistance such as wheat and flour, job training, trauma-informed mental health services, and school funding.
The request is more than double the $13 billion Biden requested last month and lawmakers approved. The Biden administration has sent more than $2.4 billion in aid to Ukraine.
Biden, in a letter to lawmakers who formalized the request, asked for aid to Ukraine to be tied to $22.5 billion in funding for the Covid pandemic response, which he requested in March. Democrats wanted to tie Ukraine and Covid relief together, while Republicans sought to tie efforts to expand the Title 42 health order at the border to the Covid funding request.
Biden also wants to sell the luxury yachts and opulent apartments the US government has confiscated from Russian oligarchs, and then send that money to Ukraine to help them repel Vladimir Putin’s forces.
Biden is asking Congress for an additional $33 billion in military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine
The funding includes $3 billion in humanitarian assistance—funding for high thermal blankets, medical supplies, emergency health kits, clean drinking water, direct food aid such as wheat and flour, job training, trauma-informed mental health services, and funding for schools
Biden will ask Congress Thursday to expand his powers as president so he can do just that.
“Seizing Yachts, Funding the War”, White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain tweeted about the request.
Additionally, in his White House speech later Thursday morning, Biden will ask lawmakers for billions of dollars in additional US spending to help Ukraine’s military and provide humanitarian assistance to the displaced population.
And he will urge lawmakers to make it a criminal offense if a person “knowingly or intentionally possesses proceeds derived directly from corrupt dealings with the Russian government”, double the statute of limitations for foreign money laundering offenses to 10 years, and expand the definition of the “Extortion” under US law to include efforts to evade sanctions.
President Joe Biden wants to sell the luxury yachts and opulent apartments the US government has confiscated from Russian oligarchs and send money to Ukraine — above is the “Tango” — the confiscated 254-foot yacht to Viktor Vekselberg, a billionaire and close Putin ally, that’s worth an estimated $120 million
More than a dozen yachts worth about $2.5 billion have been seized in several countries around the world
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said last week his country has suffered $550 billion in economic damage since Russia’s invasion on February 24. The country is demanding at least $5 billion a month in international emergency aid.
Biden’s request comes as there has been a bipartisan push in Washington to more aggressively punish Russia’s elite, a group of billionaires – many of whom made their money from Putin’s regime.
The Biden administration has already imposed sanctions on two dozen oligarchs and their family members, including Putin himself.
More than a dozen yachts worth about $2.5 billion have been seized in several countries around the world, including the “Tango” – a 254-foot yacht owned by Viktor Vekselberg, a billionaire and close ally of Putin, which has an estimated value of 120 million US dollars.
It was seized by the US at its Spanish port earlier this month.
It was the first US seizure of an oligarch’s yacht since Attorney General Merrick Garland and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen formed a task force called REPO – short for Russian Elites, Proxies and Oligarchs – to enforce sanctions imposed after Putin invaded the Ukraine were imposed.
The federal government “sanctioned and blocked ships and planes worth over a billion dollars and froze hundreds of millions of dollars in Russian elite assets in US bank accounts,” the White House said.
The government also noted that European Union member states have reported over $30 billion in asset freezes, including nearly $7 billion in boats, helicopters, real estate and works of art.
Russia’s billionaires control about 30 percent of the nation’s wealth.
President Joe Biden will also ask Congress for additional funds for military and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said last week his country has suffered $550 billion in economic damage since Russia’s invasion on February 24
And lawmakers have already pushed for using those confiscated assets to help Ukraine.
The House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a mostly symbolic measure urging Biden to sell the oligarchs’ frozen assets to provide the money for Ukraine’s military and humanitarian aid.
The law is not binding, but its passage by a vote of 417 to 8 reflected a desire by Democrats and Republicans to suppress Russia more aggressively.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said it would be taken up by the Senate, where it is expected to pass.
But the Justice Department needs a bylaw amendment by Congress to sort out the jumble of legal issues that need to be resolved before the United States can repurpose the yachts and extravagant apartments as de facto reparations for Ukrainians.
In his March 1 State of the Union address, President Biden warned oligarchs that US and European allies would “find and seize your yachts, your luxury apartments, your private jets.”
“We’ve come about your ill-gotten gains,” he said.