The White House asked Congress on Friday to approve another $11.7 billion in military aid for Ukraine amid its conflict with Russia.
The sum was included in an emergency funding request for $47.1 billion, which the Biden administration said was also required for its response to Covid-19 and monkeypox, as well as disaster relief efforts.
The $11.7 billion package includes $4.5 billion for military equipment and the replenishment of Pentagon stockpiles, $2.7 billion on defense and intelligence aid for Ukraine, and $4.5 billion on budgetary support for the government in Kiev.
“We have rallied the world to support the people of Ukraine to defend their democracy and we simply cannot allow that support to Ukraine to run dry,” White House Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young wrote in a blog post.
The administration also requested $2 billion to alleviate the negative effects of the conflict in Ukraine, as well as Western sanctions imposed on Russia affecting energy supplies in the US.
The US has been the main backer of Kiev in its conflict with Moscow, providing the Ukrainian forces with billions of dollars in military and financial aid, as well as intelligence data. Washington’s deliveries to the Zelensky government have included such sophisticated hardware as HIMARS multiple rocket launchers, M777 howitzers, and combat drones.
Congress approved a $40 billion military and humanitarian support package for Ukraine in May. According to Young, around three-quarters of the aid that lawmakers provided to Kiev has already been disbursed or committed. “As we said at the time, those resources were intended to last through September,” she explained.
Russia has repeatedly criticized the deliveries of weapons to Kiev from Washington and its allies, saying they won’t change the outcome of the conflict, but will prolong the fighting and increase the risk of a direct confrontation between Moscow and NATO.
Washington’s “ever more obvious and deeper involvement in Ukraine in terms of countering our military operation, in fact, puts… the US on the verge of turning into a party to the conflict,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov warned last month.