New York. The United States “will never give up the fight against tyrants” and Vladimir Putin “will not win in Ukraine, he will never be able to fully occupy it”. In return, Joe Biden announced another massive $800 million military aid package for Kyiv. The US President shared the decision directly with Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, whom he met at the White House before embarking on a tour that will take him to Portland and Seattle to try to reignite his popularity among American voters.
Among the new military aid are 72 155mm howitzers, 144,000 artillery shells and 121 Phoenix Ghost drones, which were specially developed by the US Air Force for the needs of the Ukrainian armed forces, according to CNN Pentagon spokesman John Kirby (Im Compared to the switchblades, the so-called “kamikaze drones” already sent by the USA, these have a greater “range”). Defense sources told the Washington Post that the new package will “start in the next 24 to 48 hours” and arrive in the hands of Ukrainian forces “over the weekend.” The war has entered “a critical phase” and there is no time to lose, stressed the president, who will ask Congress next week for more money to help Kyiv. In addition to arms, there must be added 500 million in “direct aid” provided by the Treasury and announced by Secretary Janet Yellen at her meetings with Shmyhal and Finance Minister Sergiy Marchenko. The Prime Minister of Ukraine also met in Washington with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Pentagon Chief Lloyd Austin and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, as well as the Director General of the IMF and the President of the World Bank.
Meanwhile, Biden has announced the closure of all US ports to Russian or Moscow government-affiliated ships. And he reiterated that the goals of the United States and its allies are to “prevent Putin from invading Ukraine and continue to isolate him.” The commander in chief, speaking from the Roosevelt Room of the White House, then outlined the new program to take in Ukrainian refugees, up to 100,000, as he himself promised a month ago. The plan calls for refugees to be sponsored by an American person or non-profit organization and then subjected to “rigorous” safety and health checks, including an anti-Covid vaccination. Once all requirements are met, they can be granted humanitarian residency in the country for up to two years. Meanwhile, Spain has sent a 200-ton shipment of armaments to Ukraine from the old continent, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said during his visit to Kyiv, where he met President Volodymyr Zelenskyy along with his Danish counterpart Mette Frederiksen. While a pragmatic solution to the delivery of heavy weapons to Kyiv was found in Berlin, Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht announced a system called “circular exchange”. According to the mechanism, the Eastern European NATO countries will send Soviet-made weapons to Ukraine, and Germany will then send new replacement weapons to the allies. Also yesterday, Estonia and Latvia recognized Russia’s actions in Ukraine as genocide. And from Brussels, “the EU Commission has begun to evaluate the responses to the first part of the questionnaire” for Kiev’s accession to the Union.