US President Joe Biden announced on Wednesday that he has signed a package of bills that includes $61 billion in military aid to Ukraine.
Biden said that the United States will start sending military aid to Ukraine within a few hours.
The US Department of Defense announced that it is beginning to supply weapons to Kyiv.
“This is the 56th piece of equipment that the Biden administration is providing to Ukraine from the Department of Defense stockpile starting in August 2021. The package is valued at one billion dollars and includes funds to meet Ukraine’s most urgent needs, including air defenses, artillery shells , armored vehicles and anti-tank weapons,” the Pentagon said in a statement.
The package of bills was approved by the upper house of the US Congress, the Senate, on Tuesday night, but on Saturday, after months of delay, it was passed by the Republican-controlled lower house of Congress, the House of Representatives, where it was supported by 310 members of the House of Representatives and 112 opposed. It passed the Democratic-controlled Senate on Tuesday by a vote of 79 to 18.
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 includes $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.
Joe Biden. Photo: scanpix/REUTERS
