Joe Biden says he “informed President Zelenskyy that the United States is providing another $1 billion in security assistance for Ukraine.”
QUICK FACTS:
- As U.S. inflation recently hit a record high of 8.6%, Joe Biden has promised to send $1 billion to Ukraine after already sending the wartorn nation $40 billion last month.
- In a White House press release, Biden explained that he spoke with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy about its ongoing war with Russia in order to reaffirm his “commitment that the United States will stand by Ukraine as it defends its democracy and support its sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of unprovoked Russian aggression.”
- “I informed President Zelenskyy that the United States is providing another $1 billion in security assistance for Ukraine,” Biden stated, “including additional artillery and coastal defense weapons, as well as ammunition for the artillery and advanced rocket systems that the Ukrainians need to support their defensive operations in the Donbas.”
- Biden also noted that U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin would be in Brussels today to “coordinate additional international support for the Ukrainian armed forces.”
- On the same day Biden announced the aid package to Ukraine, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that Ukraine had halted peace talks with Russia on orders from its U.S. “handlers” while Russia was prepared to carry on. “These talks were frozen, halted, broken off,” Zakharova said during the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. “Let [Ukraine] say for themselves what they did with these talks. We know that very well because we have information that was the order given by their American handlers.”
MORE MONEY FOR UKRAINIANS:
- In the release, Biden said the U.S. would also be sending $225 million in order to show that the U.S. is “committed to supporting the Ukrainian people.”
- “Today, I am also announcing an additional $225 million in humanitarian assistance to help people inside Ukraine,” said Biden, “including by supplying safe drinking water, critical medical supplies and health care, food, shelter, and cash for families to purchase essential items.”
BACKGROUND:
- The Labor Department last week said that the U.S. consumer-price index increased 8.6% in May from the same month a year ago, marking its fastest pace since December 1981, according to The Wall Street Journal.
- Prices charged by U.S. businesses were up 10.8% in May compared to 2021 and rose 0.8% compared to the prior month, according to a Tuesday news release from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
- U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm recently admitted that America’s record-high gas prices—$5.01 per gallon (compared to $2 last year)—are “unsustainable.” “Everyday citizens who are on fixed incomes [are] paying huge amounts of money that they had not anticipated or budgeted for just to get to work. It’s unsustainable for many and unfortunately there’s not a quick fix,” she said.
- Hedge-fund veteran Leon Cooperman, who predicts the economy will tumble into a recession in 2023, told CNBC Tuesday he thought U.S. stocks would soon suffer a total drop of 40%.
