WASHINGTON, April 28 (Reuters) – President Joe Biden has asked Congress for $ 33 billion to support Ukraine – a dramatic escalation of US funding for the war with Russia – and new tools to drain assets from Russian oligarchs.
The huge request for funding includes more than $ 20 billion in weapons, ammunition and other military aid, as well as $ 8.5 billion in direct economic aid to the government and $ 3 billion in humanitarian aid. It is designed to cover the needs of military efforts until September, the end of the fiscal year.
“We need this bill to support Ukraine in its struggle for freedom,” Biden told the White House after signing the petition on Thursday. “The cost of this battle – it’s not cheap – but retreating from aggression will be more expensive.”
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The United States has ruled out sending its own or NATO forces to Ukraine, but Washington and its European allies are supplying Kyiv with weapons such as drones, heavy howitzer artillery, Stinger anti-aircraft missiles and Javelin anti-tank missiles.
Biden also wants the opportunity to take more money from Russian oligarchs to pay for military efforts.
His proposal would allow US officials to confiscate more assets from oligarchs, donate money from those confiscations to Ukraine and further criminalize the avoidance of sanctions, the White House said.
The proposed steps include allowing the Department of Justice to use the strict US racketeering law once introduced against the Mafia, the Racketeering and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) to prosecute people who evade sanctions.
Biden also wants to give prosecutors more time to build such cases by extending the statute of limitations on money laundering prosecutions to 10 years instead of five. He would also commit the crime of keeping money knowingly taken from corrupt deals with Russia, according to a summary of legislative proposals.
US President Joe Biden during a speech at Roosevelt’s room at the White House in Washington, DC, USA, April 21, 2022. REUTERS / Evelyn Hockstein / File Photo
The measures are part of a U.S. effort to isolate and punish Russia for its February 24 invasion of Ukraine, as well as help Kyiv recover from a war that has devastated cities and forced more than 5 million people to flee abroad.
Biden has already demanded record peacetime sums to fund the Pentagon’s research and development and efforts to counter alleged threats from countries, including Russia.
The full package accounts for one-fifth of Ukraine’s prewar economic output, and $ 20 billion in US military aid alone is about a third of what the Russian military spent as a whole last year before the war.
The package will include food security aid, economic incentives for Ukraine and funding for the use of the Cold War-era Defense Production Act to expand domestic production of key minerals that are in short supply due to the war. Read more
But the funding measure could face problems on Capitol Hill. Biden has demanded $ 22.5 billion for the COVID-19 response in March, and Democrats with tight control of the Senate and House of Representatives may insist that it be passed at the same time as the measure on Ukraine.
While lawmakers generally support spending on Ukraine, Republican congressional officials said Thursday that efforts to combine funding for the war with a pandemic response could make it difficult to adopt.
“I don’t care how they do it,” Biden said. “They can do it individually or together, but we need both.”
US military aid to Ukraine alone has exceeded $ 3 billion since Russia launched what it calls a “special military operation” to demilitarize and eliminate fascists in Ukraine. Kyiv and its Western allies reject this as a false pretext.
The United States and its European allies have frozen $ 30 billion in assets held by wealthy individuals linked to Russian President Vladimir Putin, including yachts, helicopters, real estate and art, the Biden administration said.
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Additional reports by Patricia Zengerle; Edited by Robert Birsel and Alistair Bell
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