The US leader has lamented delays in sending American money to Ukraine
US President Joe Biden has publicly apologized to Vladimir Zelensky for “weeks” of uncertainty in Kiev about getting billions in aid from American taxpayers.
The White House requested $61 billion for Ukraine as part of a national security funding bill in October, but it did not get approved by Congress until late April. Ukraine has blamed the lack of US funding for a string of defeats along the battlefield.
“I apologize for those weeks of not knowing what’s going to happen in terms of funding,” Biden told Zelensky as they met in France on Friday. The US president criticized “some of our very conservative members” of Congress for holding up the bill.
“We’re not gonna walk away from you,” Biden reassured Zelensky. “We’re still in. Completely. Thoroughly.”
Washington has announced another $225 million package of military aid to Kiev, including ammunition for artillery and HIMARS rocket launchers. Biden told Zelensky the aid was “to help you reconstruct the electric grid,” however. Russian air and missile strikes have severely degraded Ukraine’s power-generating capacity in recent weeks.
Zelensky brought up the 80th anniversary of the Anglo-American landings in Normandy to appeal for the same kind of aid to Kiev.
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