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WASHINGTON – President Biden on Friday revealed details of a fresh $225 million military aid package for Kyiv after a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in France.
“The United States is standing with you,” Biden told Zelensky in announcing the additional military aid, whose funding was already approved as part of a $60 billion congressional aid package in April.
“You are the bulwark against the aggression that’s taken place. We have an obligation to be there,” the president said.
The latest package includes air-defense interceptors, artillery systems and associated munitions, armored vehicles and anti-tank weapons aimed to “help strengthen Ukraine’s air defenses and reinforce Ukrainian capabilities across the front lines,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement Friday.
Biden told Zelensky that some of the funds also would be used “to help you reconstruct the electric grid” as Russia continues targeting Ukraine’s civilian power plants.
The White House unveiled the package just after Biden met privately with Zelensky as the two gathered with international leaders in France for the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of D-Day at Normandy Beach this week.
The two leaders discussed the upcoming Ukraine Peace Summit next weekend in Lucerne, Switzerland – which Biden is skipping, to Zelensky’s dismay.
Biden, who is running for re-election in November is instead attending a Hollywood fund-raiser for himself.
“I believe that the peace summit needs President Biden and other leaders need President Biden because they will look at the US’s reaction,” Zelensky said during a press conference May 28. “His absence would only be met by an applause by [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, a personal, standing applause by Putin.”
The White House on Tuesday announced Vice President Kamala Harris would attend the important summit — which will bring together the leaders of roughly 100 nations to discuss ways to end Russia’s war.
Friday’s package is the sixth tranche of military aid to come from the $60 billion provided in the bipartisan security assistance supplemental bill signed into law in April.
It took seven months for lawmakers to agree on the aid bill, which also included funds for the defense of Israel and Taiwan.
Biden on Friday apologized for the delayed aid and “those weeks of not knowing what was going to pan [out] in terms of funding,” shaming “some of our very conservative members [of Congress] who were holding it up.”
Moscow took advantage of that time as Kyiv’s supplies dwindled and has been making advances toward Ukraine’s second-largest city of Kharkiv in the nation’s northeast.
Russia has also been targeting Ukraine’s power infrastructure, causing blackouts across the country. Even Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv — home to roughly 3 million people, including Zelensky — has been suffering hourslong power outages each day in recent weeks, officials told The Post.
The new weapons package is tailored to include items needed to “repel Russia’s assault near Kharkiv,” Blinken said in a statement Friday.
“We will move this new assistance as quickly as possible to bolster Ukraine’s defense of its territory and its people,” he said. “As President Biden has made clear, the United States and the international coalition we have assembled will continue to stand with Ukraine.”
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