The president of the United States, Joe Biden, asked his country’s Congress this Thursday to approve “as quickly as possible” a new aid package for Ukraine for 33,000 million dollars, in an intervention before the Legislative in which he said that this support “is not cheap”, but that Washington cannot “remain on the sidelines” in the face of Russia’s “atrocities and aggressions”. We are not attacking Russia. We are helping Ukraine defend itself against Russian aggression and just as (Russian President Vladimir) Putin chose to launch this brutal invasion, we can choose to end this brutal invasion,” said Biden, noting that the United States has already supplied Ukraine with 10 anti-tank weapon systems for every tank Russia sent to the country.
“It is not cheap”
“We need this package to help Ukraine fight for its freedom,” he said. “The cost of this fight is not cheap, but giving in to aggression is going to be more expensive if we allow it,” added the US president, who reiterated that the United States does not plan to send troops to Ukraine.“Our NATO allies, our EU partners, will also pay their share, but we have to do our part to lead the alliance”, said. Calling the rhetoric in Moscow about the possibility of nuclear war a sign of “desperation,” Biden asserted that “nobody should make idle comments about the use of nuclear weapons or the possibility of using them. It’s irresponsible.”
Most of the huge package requested by Biden will be the “20,000 million dollars in military and security assistance”, which will allow “arms and ammunition to go to the Ukrainian people”a senior US official told reporters. Others $8.5 billion “will help the Ukrainian government respond to the immediate crisis”and ones 3,000 million dollars will be allocated to humanitarian assistance and to face the global rise in food pricesgiven that Ukraine is a major exporter of wheat.
The “gas blackmail”
The package also includes funding to address economic shocks in the United States and elsewhere, ranging from the impact on food to the availability of crucial components for high-tech manufacturing. After Russia cut gas to Poland on Wednesday and Bulgaria for not paying for the supply in rubles, as Putin had demanded, Biden pointed out that the United States will not allow Moscow to use the “gas blackmail” to put pressure on European allies and undermine the sanctions imposed on Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine. “We will not allow Russia to intimidate or blackmail to circumvent these sanctions. We will not allow Russia to use its oil and gas to avoid the consequences of its aggression.”Biden stated.
The Russian move, which came a day after the United States and other Western countries promised to speed up arms supplies to kyiv, was also branded as “blackmail” by the European Union (EU), while the Kremlin said it was in response to the sanctions imposed on him for the invasion of Ukraine. Within the proposal that will be sent to Congress, Biden included calling for new powers to seize and reuse assets of Russian businessmen close to the Kremlin to compensate Ukraine for damages caused by Russia’s invasion, the White House reported. The liquidation of the assets confiscated from Russian businessmen would allow “transfer” to kyiv the profits generated to “remedy the damage (caused to Ukraine) by the Russian invasion,” the White House announced.
Blockade of Russian assets
Until now, EU allies blocked over $30 billion in Russian assets, including nearly $7 billion in luxury assets owned by oligarchs such as yachts, artwork, real estate and helicopters, the White House said in a statement. The United States has “sanctioned and blocked more than $1 billion worth of ships and aircraft, as well as frozen hundreds of millions of dollars in assets belonging to Russian elites in US accounts,” the statement said. One of the latest seizures was of a $90 million superyacht belonging to Russian billionaire Victor Vekselberg.
Biden’s proposed legislative package would also strengthen the legal pressure on Russian oligarchsby expanding the arsenal used by US prosecutors by doubling the amount of time they are allowed to conduct money laundering investigations from five to 10 years, and by enforcing anti-extortion laws used against organized crime to address sanctions evasion .