The US Congress approved an aid package for Ukraine and its allies. It has includes $14 billion for military support for Ukraine, humanitarian aid and the strengthening of NATO’s eastern flank. In a separate vote, the Chamber also adopted the law on the embargo on Russian energy resources.
The package adopted by the House of Representatives – $13.6 billion of additional expenses, incl. to help Ukraine and the countries receiving refugees – this is part of the budget law worth 1.5 trillion dollars. The package is larger than the $10 billion requested by the White House. In the final edit of the package, the amount for military aid was almost doubled.
More than half of the amount allocated to Ukraine – $ 6.65 billion – will cover military expenses. 3 billion will go to finance the increased presence of US forces on NATO’s eastern flank, and 3.5 billion will be allocated to military aid for Ukraine. In addition, 650 million was allocated to supplement the military inventories of the countries that handed over their weapons to Ukraine.
Congress has allocated over $ 4 billion to humanitarian aid for refugees. This amount covers the financing of food and health care for Ukrainians fleeing the war, as well as funding for the communities hosting refugees.
It is not clear from the documents of the Congress how much of the funds will go to Poland. The package also includes measures to enforce sanctions against Russia, including the identification and freezing of the assets of Russian oligarchs.
Deputy Minister of Infrastructure Marcin Horała said in the program of Polish Radio 1 on Thursday that some of these funds will go to Poland, and that their distribution and allocation for specific purposes will be discussed.
– Poland should get funds counted in billions of euros or dollars, we have about 1.5 million refugees from Ukraine, and this number will continue to grow. These are huge costs for the Polish education and health care system – said the deputy minister.
In the overnight vote, the House of Representatives also passed (by an overwhelming majority of 414-17) a bill imposing an embargo on Russian oil, gas, coal and other energy resources. The vote was mainly symbolic because earlier the ban on the import of these products was introduced by President Joe Biden by means of an executive regulation.
Arkadiusz Słomczyński