The United States has "aided" Ukraine with more than 60 billion US dollars, where will the money go?

This is the Capitol in Washington, D.C., on February 6. Xinhua News Agency (photo by Aaron)

The U.S. Senate voted on the 23rd to pass a bill on foreign aid appropriations totaling $95 billion. Among them, most of the foreign aid funds will be used to support Ukraine in military and economic aspects, amounting to 60.84 billion US dollars.

Since the bill has been passed in the House of Representatives before, it only needs to be signed by US President Biden on the 24th, and the arms to Ukraine may be shipped to Ukraine within a few days. But an analysis of the terms shows that most of this appropriation is directly used by the United States itself. Whose will the passage of the bill become? And what impact will it have on the situation of the Russian-Ukrainian war? Please see the Xinhua News Agency reporter to explain the situation——

Who is the money going on?

The Senate, which is controlled by Democrats, passed the bill on the 23rd with a vote of 79 in favor and 18 against. The House of Representatives has passed this aid bill for Ukraine on the 20th. Immediately after the Senate vote, Biden issued a statement saying that he would sign the bill on the 24th.

According to the bill, most of the foreign aid funds will be used to support Ukraine in military and economic aspects, amounting to $60.84 billion. Of this money, $23.2 billion will be used to fill the gap in U.S. weapons stockpiles caused by arms aid to Ukraine, $11.3 billion will be used to fund U.S. military missions in Europe, and $13.8 billion will be used by the U.S. government to purchase advanced weapons and defense equipment from arms dealers to aid Ukraine. In addition, the United States will provide Ukraine with a loan of about $9 billion for economic assistance.

Congress also authorized the US president to "confiscate" certain Russian sovereign assets and transfer them to Ukraine for "war reparations or (post-war) reconstruction."

It is not difficult to see that the United States' "clever name" bill has stuffed most of the money back into its own pocket. It not only satisfies Biden's request for special appropriations to Congress in October last year, but also means that the six-month-long bipartisan battle over whether to approve additional aid funds for Ukraine has come to an end for the time being.

Can the Russia-Ukraine war be reversed?

The United States is the largest "financier" of military aid to Ukraine, and Western media have calculated that with the $60.84 billion passed on the 23rd, the United States has invested up to $170 billion in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The latest aid to Ukraine has finally been approved after months of repeated urging by the White House and congressional Democrats. The reason why it has received great attention is mainly because the Ukrainian army, which lacks US aid, is in a difficult situation in the current stage of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, and the White House has faced a situation of running out of aid funds for Ukraine since the end of last year.

It has been half a year since Biden made a request to Congress in October last year. According to media reports here, the Ukrainian army has had to ration ammunition as needed because it cannot be reinforced. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on the 21st on a program on NBC that this aid fund will give Ukraine a "chance to win" in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, and that Ukraine cannot afford to wait for the "next six months", and hopes that the United States will provide "real assistance" to the Ukrainian army as soon as possible, so that they can move the front forward. U.S. government officials disclosed on the 23rd that the Pentagon has put together $1 billion worth of military aid to Ukraine in accordance with the relevant content of the bill, and some of the ammunition in the new military aid has been shipped to Europe and is expected to be delivered to the front line within a few days.

Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said on the 22nd that the new package of US aid to Ukraine will not change the situation on the battlefield, but will lead to an increase in the death toll of Ukrainians. Not only that, but most of the U.S. side claims that the allocated funds will somehow stay on U.S. soil, and "the U.S. will receive additional dividends by providing aid to Ukraine, and the U.S. will become richer as a result."

Ilya Kramnik, a researcher at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences, also believes that in the new round of US aid, only a small part will be sent directly to Ukraine, and the help for Ukraine to change the situation is very limited. Russian military expert Alexander Mikhailov analyzed that the US $60.84 billion aid package for Ukraine will be "the last chance given to Ukraine by the West." The new round of aid could give ordinary Ukrainians a sense of hope that the situation might change, but in fact the situation on the battlefield would still be in Russia's favor.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on the 23rd that the Russian army will intensify its crackdown on weapons and equipment provided by Western countries to Ukraine. He said that the Russian side will continue to expand the production of weapons and military equipment in response to the threat posed to Russia by the United States and its allies, and the Russian army "has shattered the myth that Western weapons are superior."

How many families are happy and how many are sad?

Due to the opposition of some lawmakers in the United States, mainly hard-line conservatives in the Republican Party, Biden submitted a special funding request to Congress in October last year. In February, the Senate voted to pass a foreign aid appropriations bill with a similar amount, but Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson repeatedly delayed the date for a vote in the House of Representatives, citing that the bill did not address Republicans' immigration policy advocacy at the time. Now that the bill has passed, there is no doubt that Biden has a matter on his mind.

Since the escalation of the Ukraine crisis, the United States has continued to add fuel to the fire and increase military aid, and arms dealers have received a large number of orders and made a lot of money. And the military-industrial complex is usually the financier behind American politicians. The Patriot missile defense system is produced by Oretheon, based in Arizona, while artillery shells are produced in 12 states, including Pennsylvania, Ohio and Texas. In view of the fact that Pennsylvania and Arizona are "swing states" that have a decisive impact on the outcome of the election in the general election, Biden's "tendency" on the issue of "benefiting from aid" this time can be said to be self-evident.

However, Johnson, who pushed for Ukrainian funds in the House of Representatives, did not have such an easy time. The approved bill, which added some national security policy provisions demanded by Republican conservatives but foritted to reform the current immigration policy, was passed by the House of Representatives, but it was fiercely attacked by a small number of Republican conservatives who opposed increased aid to Ukraine, who believed that Johnson had bowed to the Democrats and threatened to remove him as speaker of the House of Representatives.

But US media reports believe that removing Johnson will not be an easy task. On the one hand, Johnson recently went to Mar-a-Lago to meet with former President Trump and gain his support. On the other hand, many Republican conservatives oppose Johnson's removal for reasons such as the lack of an obviously competent replacement for Johnson, the recent resignation of many Republican members of the House of Representatives, the repeated erosion of the Republican Party's seat advantage in the House of Representatives, and the Republican Party's inability to afford any "civil unrest" before the November election. (According to Xinhua News Agency)