US military support will help Ukraine, but Europe also has a lot to do in this area and cannot take cooperation with the US for granted, State President Edgars Rinkēvičs told journalists on Wednesday after a meeting with Prime Minister Evikas Siliņa (JV).
The president believes that both he and the prime minister have done a lot in gathering support for Ukraine. He reminded that very recently Silinas visited the USA, meeting with various politicians. Rinkēvičs emphasized that many other European countries have also acted in this way.
“It is to be hoped that very soon US military aid will reach Ukraine and help it in its struggle. However, our diplomatic struggles and actions, supporting Ukraine in all possible ways, are far from over,” the President said.
Silina expressed his satisfaction that the Senate of the upper house of the US Congress supported the package of bills, which includes the bill on military aid to Ukraine in the amount of 61 billion US dollars. She said the wait for the decision was nerve-wracking.
The Prime Minister pointed out that both the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, as well as the Prime Minister of Ukraine Denis Shmykhal, as well as her visit to the USA gave an opportunity to tell what such support means to Ukraine, Europe and the USA. In her opinion, this is an important decision not only in the context of Ukraine. It is also important for the United States as a superpower, so that it does not lose its international role. Silina emphasized that the US had to make such a decision on military support for Ukraine in order to show its leadership in world democratic processes.
The $61 billion military aid package was passed by the Republican-controlled upper house of the House of Representatives after months of delay, LETA reported, with 310 lawmakers supporting it and 112 against. It passed the Democratic-controlled Senate on Tuesday by a vote of 79 to 18.
After passing both houses of Congress, the package will be sent to US President Joe Biden, who has promised to immediately sign it into law.
The unusual four-bill package, worth $95 billion, also includes funds for Israel, security assistance for Taiwan and allies in the Indo-Pacific region, and measures that include sanctions, threats to ban the Chinese-owned social media app TikTok and the possible transfer of seized Russian assets to Ukraine . It also includes humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, Sudan and Haiti.
The adopted package contains threats to ban the Tiktok app throughout the US if it does not get rid of its Chinese parent company ByteDance. The package also provides $13 billion for Israel, which is at war with the Palestinian militant group Hamas, more than $9 billion in humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, Sudan and Haiti, and $8 billion in military aid to Taiwan.
