US President Joe Biden has vowed continued US support for Ukraine, after further military funding was excluded from a last-minute congressional budget deal, says the BBC.
The temporary measure, pushed through to avert a government shutdown, did not include $6bn in military aid for Kyiv – a top White House priority.
Many Republicans oppose further military aid. Biden nevertheless said Ukraine could „count on” US support, and that „We cannot, under any circumstances, allow US support to Ukraine to be interrupted.
The US has already supplied some $46bn in military aid to Ukraine since Russian launched its full scale invasion in February 2022. Now Biden has requested another $24bn (£19bn).
Furthermore, in recent months the US has sent state of the art equipment to Kiev – including long-range missiles and Abrams tanks.
But Saturday’s temporary budget agreement, which will fund the US federal government for 45 days, stripped out continued military funding for the present moment.
Senior Senate leaders from both parties released a joint statement signalling their intention to „ensure the US government continues to provide” support to Ukraine in the coming weeks.
Republican Florida congressman Matt Gaetz told reporters on Saturday that funding „already authorised out of this Congress is somewhere between more than enough and way too much”, while Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor-Green said far too much aid had already been allocated to Kiev, saying „Ukraine is not the 51st state”.
Their approach provoked a furious reaction from Democratic Party senators.
„I can’t believe people are going to walk away from Ukraine at this moment in time”, Senator Mark Warner said.
Ukraine’s foreign ministry says the „flow of US aid won’t change” with $3bn of humanitarian and military support set to still arrive, but it concedes „ongoing programs” might be affected.
Only one Ukrainian MP, Oleksi Goncharenko, admitted that the suspended funding was causing concern in Kiev: „The vote in US Congress is disturbing. The US said they would be with Ukraine as long as it takes and now see how support of Ukraine is excluded from the stop-gap deal. This is the sign of alarm, not only for Ukraine, but for Europe, too”, he told the BBC.
