US House passes military lend-lease bill to expedite aid to Ukraine
The U.S. House of Representatives has given its final vote to legislation that streamlines a World War II military lend-lease program to supply Ukraine with U.S. equipment to fight the Russian invasion.
The measure, which passed by an overwhelming vote of 417 to 10, now goes to the White House for President Joe Biden to sign into law.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee, Gregory Meeks of New York, declared with the unified support of the US Congress: “Ukraine will win”.
The bill is the latest from Congress, which regularly crafts resolutions and resources to counter Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and help the country and its President, Volodymyr Zelensky, fight back.
The Biden administration announced Thursday that it would seek an additional $30 billion from Congress in military and humanitarian aid, on top of the nearly $14 billion approved by Congress last month to help Ukraine fight the war.
Months in the making, the bipartisan bill was first introduced in January as part of the United States’ deterrent posture to warn against Mr. Putin’s aggression against Ukraine.
The measure would update 1941 legislation that Franklin D Roosevelt enacted to help the allies fight Nazi Germany.
Back then, the then US President introduced the Lend-Lease Act in Congress, heeding British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s plea for help, even as America initially remained neutral in the war, according to the National Archives of the United States.
Mr. Biden is expected to sign the bill, giving the administration greater leeway to send military equipment to Ukraine and its neighboring allies in Eastern Europe.
“It’s a real moment in history that we’re back on this floor of the House in support of Lend-Lease,” Rep. French Hill said.
The congressman said he hoped ‘Churchill’s idea’ would end delays in sending aid to Ukraine, in the same way the original law sped up aid to Great Britain Britain fighting Adolf Hitler’s Germany in World War II.
“Today we find ourselves in a very similar situation with Putin systematically bombing and bombing peaceful villages and towns in Ukraine,” he said.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi also welcomed the moment, saying war is a battle between democracy and autocracy, and echoed Mr. Roosevelt’s call for Americans to provide the fuel needed to maintain the flame of democracy.
“Our task today remains the same,” she said. “The Ukrainian people are fighting for all of us.”
Mr. Zelensky has repeatedly pleaded for more military equipment from the United States and its allies, in addition to Stinger and Javelin missile systems, deadly drones and other weapons that have already flowed into the region.
Ukraine’s military and its citizens are engaged in brutal street-level combat to save their country, as Russia bombs towns and villages in Mr. Putin’s quest to seize control of the nation and integrate into Russia.
Politicians from both parties, Republicans and Democrats, have argued that the United States is not moving fast enough to help Ukrainians.
Countless members of Congress have traveled to the region to see the devastation firsthand, meet their Ukrainian counterparts and do what they can to help resettle the flood of more than five million refugees.
The measure approved by the US Congress would update the 1941 law specifically for the Ukraine conflict, removing certain repayment requirements and allowing military equipment to be loaned or rented for more than five years.
While the updated legislation had bipartisan support in the House and Senate, it stalled in Congress along with other Ukraine-focused bills.
Democratic lawmakers tended to defer to their party’s president to take the lead on foreign policy, especially as Biden struggled to win support from allies abroad.