Democrats in the US Senate have introduced a new bill that includes aid for Ukraine and Israel. It is a package of measures worth $111 billion, of which $15 billion is earmarked for Ukraine and $10.6 billion for Israel. However, there is a risk that the document will not be adopted due to the lack of an agreed position on the southern border, said Oksana Markarova, Ukraine's Ambassador to the United States, during a telethon.
According to her, the aid package for Ukraine, which will include substantial military, direct budgetary and humanitarian assistance, is currently being considered by the Senate and the House of Representatives. The package also includes the issue of the southern border of the United States, which is a matter of domestic policy.
Back in November, the Congress debated whether it was appropriate to allocate such a large amount of money to Ukraine for weapons. Now, according to Markarova, the arms spending for Ukraine in the proposed package has not only not been reduced, but has even been partially increased.
When the issue of weapons received bipartisan support, there was a discussion about the appropriateness of such high budget support costs.
"The positive thing today, and this text that we saw in the Senate, is that all these figures have not been reduced, and some have even been increased in the proposal. On the negative side, if I may say so, although it is not negative for us, is that this bill does not include a coherent position on the border," she said, adding that some Republicans have already said they will not support the document without including this domestic issue.
Markarova stressed that "this is not a betrayal" - if the document is not adopted, the reason will not be Ukraine, but internal issues. They will still be able to vote for aid to Ukrainians in other packages.
The document proposed by the Democrats was published yesterday by The Hill.
At the same time, 15.1 billion is significantly less than the 60 billion proposed by the US presidential administration's request to Congress, which Ukraine has been waiting for since October.