The bulk of the money was allocated to the American defense industry, the secretary of state has said
Washington has provided around $100 billion in financial aid and military assistance to Kiev since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said. The bulk of the money was spent inside the US on defense manufacturing, he told the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on Wednesday.
This comes amid recent efforts by the outgoing administration of US President Joe Biden to spend every dollar allocated by Congress before leaving office in January.
“We’ve spent a lot of money on Ukraine and defending Ukraine, about $100 billion. Our allies and partners, they’ve spent about $150 billion doing it,” the secretary of state said. Financial assistance to Kiev, according to Blinken, represents “the best example of burden sharing” between NATO members.
He went on to claim that American taxpayers have actually benefited from Washington’s efforts to arm Ukraine because many new jobs had been created in the US to make more weapons.
“Most of that was spent here in the United States in our own defense industrial base – manufacturing, building stuff that the Ukrainians need to defend themselves. Good American jobs have been a result of that,” Blinken said.
The outgoing US administration has pledged a “massive surge” in arms deliveries and aid to Ukraine in the final weeks of its tenure.
Last week, Biden authorized a new $500 million weapons package for Ukraine, fulfilling his vow to drain dry the reserves of Ukraine-related funding. The latest, 72nd package of its kind included additional air defense, artillery, drones, and armored vehicles.
It was approved just a week after another security package worth $988 million was authorized through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), a separate military assistance mechanism.
Earlier this month, US House Speaker Mike Johnson said he doesn’t expect “any Ukraine funding to come up now,” reflecting uncertainty over Washington’s commitments under the upcoming presidency of Donald Trump.
Russia has repeatedly warned that no amount of Western aid will stop its troops from achieving the goals of its military operation or change the ultimate outcome of the Ukraine conflict.
Biden is working to leave behind “a difficult legacy” of ramped up tensions with Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has asserted.
