US approves amendment in defense budget to train Ukrainian pilots

The United States House of Representatives has approved an amendment for the defense budget bill for 2023 to train Ukrainian pilots on F-15 and F-16 fighter jets amid the reeling crisis in Ukraine, said the head of the Ukrainian presidential office, Andriy Yermak on Friday.

The training program for the Ukrainian pilots will cost 100 million US dollars, Yermak said, adding that the draft law must be passed by the US Senate and later signed by US President Joe Biden to come into effect.As per the reports by Xinhua, Ukrainian Ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova said that the US defense budget bill for 2023 envisages allocating Ukraine 1 billion dollars in security aid in the 2023 fiscal year which runs between Oct 1, 2022, and Sept 30, 2023.

US security assistance to Ukraine has turned out to be more than USD 6.1 billion since Russia launched its "brutal, unprovoked, full-scale invasion" of Ukraine on February 24.

Earlier, condemning Russia's "premeditated, unprovoked, unjustified, and brutal war" on Ukraine, Blinken had said that the US will continue to provide Ukraine with the arms to defend itself and the steady flow of US security assistance from the coalition of more than 40 Allies and partners will continue to bolster Ukraine's defenses as well as improve its ability to defend its sovereign territory and secure hard-fought victories on the battlefield.

"We have imposed swift and severe sanctions on Russia's economy and the elite of President Putin's regime. We have enhanced NATO's ability to deter and defend against any aggression by Russia on its Eastern Flank. And we will continue to deliver crucial military capabilities to Ukraine's brave defenders," he stated in the official statement.

Moreover, Washington through the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in coordination with the US Department of the Treasury also contributed USD 1.7 billion as part of budgetary aid to Ukraine under President Joe Biden's commitment to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

This contribution was made possible with generous bipartisan support from Congress. These resources have helped the Ukrainian government continue carrying out core functions - for example, keeping gas and electricity flowing to hospitals, schools, and other critical infrastructure, supporting the provision of humanitarian supplies to citizens, and continuing to pay the salaries of civil servants and teachers.

Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, USAID has been working closely with humanitarian partners in the country and region to reach Ukrainians with life-saving humanitarian assistance. The aid is also scaling up critical development assistance to respond to cyber-attacks and threats to the energy sector, countering disinformation, supporting small businesses and the agriculture sector, documenting human rights violations, meeting essential health needs, and ensuring the continued functioning of local and national government entities in the war-ravaged nation.

Notably, Russia launched a "special military operation" in Ukraine on February 24, which the West has termed an unprovoked war. As a result of this, the Western countries have also imposed several crippling sanctions on Moscow.