The United States cannot afford to remain passive in the face of the conflict in Ukraine, Joe Biden said Thursday to justify his call to Congress for a whopping $33 billion budget expansion, mostly to provide more military aid to Kyiv . Of that total, $20 billion will go to arms sales, nearly seven times the impressive amounts of arms and ammunition already shipped to Ukraine since the February 24 Russian invasion.
Kyiv has already received 10 anti-tank weapons for every Russian tank, the US President boasted during his speech at the White House.
The United States ‘doesn’t attack Russia’
But the United States is “not attacking” Russia, he assured, it is “helping Ukraine to defend itself” against Russian “atrocities and aggression.” The Kremlin had previously warned against arms deliveries to Ukraine that “threaten European security”.
This 33 billion additional aid must now be approved by the US Parliament. But the discussions between elected representatives, who nevertheless unanimously support Kyiv, are initially stumbling over the content of the law, which is intended to extend military aid: the Democrats want to insert an amendment in it in order to simultaneously increase the budget for the fight against Covid in the USA , which Republicans categorically reject.
If Democratic Senator Chairman Chuck Schumer tries to bring the two together, “it will likely doom both of them,” a Republican Senate leadership warned.
Biden attacks Putin again
For Ukraine, this help is urgent: More than two months after the conflict began, Russia has stepped up its attacks on the south and east of the country, which suffered heavy bombing on Thursday. And after confining itself to weapons considered defensive, Washington is now sending artillery, helicopters and drones to the Ukrainian army, whose soldiers are being trained in the United States or in third countries on how to use these weapons before going to the front lines to return.
Joe Biden on Thursday also castigated Vladimir Putin’s “irresponsible” threats of possible recourse to nuclear weapons. “It shows the sense of desperation Russia feels at its miserable failure to achieve its original goals,” he said.
The EU seized over $30 billion worth of Russian assets
His government wants to increase pressure on the Russian president and his entourage by proposing to liquidate the “kleptocratic” assets confiscated from Russian oligarchs and transfer the proceeds to Kyiv “to compensate for the damage caused by Russian aggression”, the White House said in a statement.
These confiscated assets to date total more than $30 billion in Russian assets for European Union (EU) countries alone, including nearly $7 billion in oligarch luxury goods (yachts, works of art, real estate and helicopters), the press release states.
His inadequate measures
The United States, meanwhile, has “sanctioned and detained over $1 billion worth of ships and planes and frozen hundreds of millions of dollars in Russian elite assets in US accounts.” And this month Spain granted a US request to seize a superyacht 90 million dollars, owned by Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin.
Punitive measures not to be weakened, the White House pledged on Thursday to continue to “crack down” on maneuvers “to avoid sanctions” by strengthening America’s investigative and prosecuting capacity against the oligarchs trying to dodge them.