WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden will announce an additional $800 million in security assistance to Ukraine on Wednesday as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy prepares to make an urgent appeal to the U.S. Congress for more help in fending off a Russian invasion.
The funding will come from a massive spending bill Biden signed into law that includes $13.6 billion in new aid to Ukraine. The new funding will provide additional humanitarian, security and economic assistance, and roughly half of the aid package will be used to deploy troops to the region and send defense equipment to Ukraine.
Earlier on Wednesday, Russia and Ukraine both emphasized new-found scope for compromise as peace talks were set to resume three weeks into a Russian assault that has so far failed to topple the Ukrainian government.
On Tuesday, the White House said Biden will travel to Brussels for a March 24 NATO summit on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which Moscow terms a “special military operation.”
Biden has ratcheted up sanctions imposed on Russia in recent days. He has called for a suspension of Russia’s trading status that affords its exported products lower tariffs in the international arena and announced a ban on Russian oil and other energy imports.
The United Nations estimates that around 3 million people have fled Ukraine, mostly women and children, and are seeking safety in neighboring countries, mainly Poland.
Biden will deliver remarks at 11:45 a.m. ET (1545 GMT).
(Reporting by Nandita Bose and Steve Holland in Washington; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
