On Friday, the White House asked Congress for $6.4 billion for military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine and to help US allies in Europe to bolster their security in response to Russia’s attack on Ukraine.
According to Bloomberg, $2.9 billion will go towards security and humanitarian assistance for Ukraine, the Baltics, Poland, and other regional countries. The remaining $3.5 billion will go to the Pentagon “to respond to the crisis.”
“In a recent conversation with lawmakers, the administration identified the need for additional US humanitarian, security, and economic assistance to Ukraine and Central European partners due to Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified invasion,” a White House Office of Management and Budget official said, according to Reuters.
The total amount could change as the White House and Congress work it out. Some members of Congress think more money needs to be spent. Sen. Chris Coon (D-DE) said the US might need to spend around $10 billion to respond to Russia’s attack on Ukraine.
Over the past year, the US has given Ukraine over $650 million in military aid and $52 million in humanitarian assistance. The Pentagon said Friday it wants to send more weapons to Ukraine and is working out ways to do so. Ukraine’s defense minister is asking for Javelin anti-tank missiles and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles.
BS.
Just keep printing that cash, morons. We’ll never pay it back.
Just more profits to the MIC. No more weapons will enter Ukraine. This just further proves the US and NATO impotence in this situation.
They have a new opportunity to launder money to themselves and their benefactors. Like in Afghanistan.
We have been pushing weapons on the Ukraine administration, and, egging them on. Does not matter whether Ukraine will pay for them or not, because we have already paid for them to be produced.
He means, we have no way to get weapons to the Ukrainians themselves.
I know.
And I know you’d know, sorry.
Brain slipped into late nite auto-post mode.
The US is always eager to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian. Any more weapons that make it into Ukraine will end up in Russian hands pretty quick. The US should be focusing on getting our forces illegally occupying Syria out before they all end up dead. How “unprofessional” of the Russians to not inform us ahead of time before recently flying fighter jets over them, where Russians have every right to be and US personnel don’t.
Ah common now, you make too much good sense…
The feeding trough is now open.
Chomp. chomp, chomp….;-)
The actual sound would be more like a roomful of people eating with their mouths open while snorting.
I gather we are talking piggishly?…..
I have nothing against pigs, so no. 😉
😉 me either….
Pigs have some usefulness. Warmongers have none.
Why – Ukraine isn’t an ally.
Yes, but they’re a “democracy” and we always support democracies except when we don’t as in Ukraine in 2014.
Correct. Democratically elected president literally run out of Ukraine. The coup was encouraged by our administration. So did the funding. When the dust settled, who was in charge? Joe Biden. He basically told Ukraine what they c ould and couldn’t do.
Absolutely none of that $ is going to wind up in the Ukraine of course. The war part will be over by the time the money is printed.
Seriously, where exactly will these weapons go?
There is no way to deliverv them by air. Only one place remains, Lvov, where lUS embassy is, and close to Polish border. And it is here where the one and only constituency supporting Nazi battalions lives.
US made the plans for “residtance” and the only way to achieve that is. ISIS style hit and run attrocities and sabotage. Money and arms can only go there, physicslly Russia cintrols the airspace. Galicia has remained outside Rusdian action as far as I know.
But, Russia landed paratroopers into the area west of Kyev, so no land connection exists between the capital and the Lvov region.
Washington is very good at smuggling weapons into war zones.
However, the gig was up at Benghazi.
“Russia landed paratroopers into the area west of Kyev, so no land connection exists between the capital and the Lvov region.”
There are some things paratroopers can do, and other things they can’t do. Securing the route between Kyiv and Lviv is one of the things they can’t do if there’s any significant resistance at all.
Thomas is right, so far at least.
The problem appears to be that Russia is allowing Lvov to remain intact for now, possible for negotiation reasons later. I’m been discussing this with poster “Night Vision” over at The Saker blog.
So what appears to be happening is that the West delivers weapons to Poland, Ukraine drives across the border in trucks to pick them up and drives back. Also, Russia is still allowing some Ukrainian air movement.
This is bad news. I think this is a huge mistake. Not that these weapons are really game-changers in any event, but I don’t see why Russia doesn’t interdict them once they’re on the Ukraine side of the border. It shouldn’t be that hard to do. Surely Russia has the surveillance capability to spot the transfers across the border. It might mean diverting some forces from the main fight, but so far Russia hasn’t committed more than 20-30% of their forces anyway. They are just now sending 10,000 Chechens to the fight. Send some of them over to Lvov or the Polish Border.
Of course, as someone pointed out, there may not be many Ukrainian forces left to use those weapons as things progress. But I still say Russia should insure that nothing comes into Ukraine from the West, by land, sea or air.
To me, it still looks like Putin’s plan is to secure a new border including DPR, LPR, and a land corridor to Crimea, then talk ceasefire with it clear that that fait accompli won’t be negotiable. Everything else is pretty much just show of force — “we can keep inconveniencing you if you’d really like, your call.”
Of course, I could be wrong … but the only alternative interpretation seems to be that the Russian forces are trying to take Kiev, etc., and are far less motivated and well-equipped/trained than most people seem to expect them to be.
Hi Thomas
Your opinion on Russia taking the Donbas with a land corridor to Crimea sounds perfectly reasonable to me so far as it would protect the Ethnic Russian populace.
This is exactly what should be happening in Palestine; free the occupied territories from the Zios and install a land corridor to Gaza.
Ukraine equals Israel, so don’t expect any support from the Amerikkkan government.
Agree.
My guess, for what it is worth, is that Russia will agree to pull back to the demarcation line dividing Western Ukraine from the Eastern, Russian-speaking, Ukraine, which Putin declared the other day to be sovereign territories.
Weaponizing Ukraine caused this mess, these fools never get tired of making mistakes.
They ended one racket on to the next.
Well, one thing about this prolonged fight; it gives the US more chances to hang itself.
One consequence of this war will be the swift removal of trillions of dollars from combating world-wide poverty, hunger and climate change to funnel these funds to preparing for and making more war. That, in turn, will trigger a major recession if not a depression in its wake.
Just in case anyone was wishing for a peace dividend post Afghanistan…
“Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified invasion,”!!!!! 5 months of threats and goading!!
Humanitarian!!??? from the country that after twenty years of destruction stole $7 billion from Afghanistan? Give me strength!