Ukrainian president asks US Congress to approve new $60 billion military aid package for Kiev, which is being blocked by the Republican-majority House.
(DW) Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenski said on Sunday (07/04) that his country will lose the war against Russia if the US Congress does not approve a package of military aid to Kiev aimed at countering Moscow’s invasion.
“It is necessary to specifically tell Congress that if Congress doesn’t help Ukraine, Ukraine will lose the war,” Zelenski said during a video conference of the United24 fundraising platform, organized by Kiev.
The Ukrainian leader also said that it would be “difficult” for his country to survive without the aid package and warned that if Kiev loses the war, “other states will be attacked”.
Ukraine, invaded by Russia in February 2022, is awaiting approval of an additional US military aid package worth 60 billion dollars. The package has been blocked for months by the US House of Representatives, where Republicans are in the majority.
Approval depends on the goodwill of presidential candidate Donald Trump’s supporters in the House, who refuse to examine the text amid a dispute over immigration regulation. The US will hold presidential elections in November.
In January, Washington announced that the money set aside to support Ukraine in the war had run out on December 27. And that forecasts of new remittances would only be possible if Congress approved a new military aid package.
Appeals for help from the West
Zelenski has repeatedly called for more help from the West amid the fighting against Russian forces. Also on Sunday, the president said that the world needs to hear the pain inflicted on Kharkiv and other Ukrainian regions by Russian attacks and again called for “political will” to ensure that Kiev gets the area defense systems it needs.
“It is quite obvious that our existing air defense capabilities in Ukraine are not sufficient, and this is obvious to our partners,” Zelenski said in his evening video address. “And the world must finally hear the pain that Russian terrorists are causing Kharkiv.”
Zelenski said that there are “defense systems in the world that can help”. “All we need is the political will to transfer these systems to Ukraine,” he said.
The Kharkiv region in eastern Ukraine, mentioned by the Ukrainian leader, has seen an increase in attacks in recent months.
This Sunday, Ukrainian authorities said that a woman was killed in the city of Kupiansk in the region. “A woman died under the rubble of an apartment on the fourth floor of a high-rise building,” Ukraine’s state emergency service said, adding that it was a residential building.
Authorities in the main city of Kharkiv, of the same name, said Russia launched another attack on Sunday, wounding five civilians, a day after a deadly attack there.
ek/md (AFP, Reuters, ots) *** Translated by DEFCONPress FYI Team ***