World

US President Joe Biden offers apology to Ukraine's Zelenskiy for congressional delays in US aid

Announces $225m tranche on sidelines of D-Day events in Paris

Reuters June 07, 2024

PARIS:

US President Joe Biden met Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Paris on Friday, apologized for congressional delays in approving the latest US aid package, and announced a fresh $225 million tranche on the sidelines of D-Day events.
The meeting was their first face-to-face encounter since Zelenskiy visited Washington in December, when the two pressed Republicans to overcome opposition in their party to more support for Ukraine.
They will meet again next week at a G7 summit in Italy, as rich Western nations discuss using Russian assets frozen after the Ukraine invasion to provide $50 billion for Ukraine.
Zelenskiy told Reuters last month that Western countries are taking too long to make decisions about aid.
"You haven't bowed down, you haven't yielded at all, you continue to fight in a way that is ... just remarkable," Biden told the Ukrainian leader at the start of their meeting on Friday. "We're not going to walk away from you."
"We're still in, completely, totally," Biden said.
Zelenskiy thanked Biden for US military, financial and humanitarian support.
"It's very important that you stay with us. This bipartisan support with the Congress, it's very important that in this unity, United States of America, all American people stay with Ukraine, like it was during World War Two, how the United States helped to save human lives, to save Europe," he said in English.

In remarks in Normandy, France, on Thursday, Biden drew a link between the World War Two battle against tyranny and Ukraine's war with Russia, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin as a tyrant.
Ukraine has struggled to defend the Kharkiv region after an offensive launched by Moscow on May 10 overran some villages.
The new security package includes air defense interceptors, artillery systems and munitions, armored vehicles, anti-tank weapons, and other capabilities, and will also help strengthen Ukraine’s air defenses and reinforce Ukrainian capabilities across the front lines, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
Biden last week shifted his position and decided Ukraine could launch US-supplied weapons at military targets inside Russia that are supporting the Kharkiv offensive.
The United States is trying to catch up with Ukraine's weaponry needs, Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer said in Washington.
"If there were two things that we could provide an infinite number of to the Ukrainians to try to turn the tide in this war, it would be artillery munitions and air defense interceptors," but the US lacked supply, Finer told a forum by the Center for a New American Security.
Outside the physical battlefield, the Russia-Ukraine war is "also a competition that takes place in our factories, the factories in Europe, the factories in Ukraine,” he said.
Reaching consensus on the frozen assets has been complicated, Daleep Singh, the US administration's deputy national security adviser for international economics, told the same group.
"We're waist-deep in the sausage-making of trying to strike a deal," said Singh, adding that he was heading back to Italy on Friday to continue the negotiations.