By KYIV. Dec 6 (Interfax-Ukraine) – This week the U.S. Congress will consider amendments to the draft law on the 2014 U.S. defense budget, including the extension of the Lend-Lease Act for 2024, Ambassador of Ukraine to the United States Oksana Markarova has said.
“First, tactically, our crucial task now, which we are working on with our American colleagues, is the adoption of an additional budget for Ukraine for the entire year 2024. What kind of package it will be in – is an internal question of the United States. We will be grateful for the help and hope that in the near future, over the next two weeks, both parties will find a compromise and accept a package that will contain exactly the help we are waiting for – armed, direct budgetary, humanitarian, energy,” Markarova said on the air of the telethon.
She said that in parallel, a lot of work is going on the weapons Ukraine needs. The third track, according to the ambassador, is U.S. sanctions, the fourth is the seizure of Russian funds.
“The fifth track is the so-called NDAA military budget, which is being considered this week. This is the bill in which we ask both the House and the Senate to extend the Lend-Lease Act until 2024. Yes, this is an additional tool, we want to get our four armed grant programs. But even if we exhaust them earlier, it will be very good to have this as an auxiliary tool,” the ambassador said.
In an interview with Voice of America in July 2022, Ukrainian Ambassador to the United States Markarova explained that “Lend-Lease is an additional instrument that we, I hope, will use more actively if necessary, when we see that funds from other countries are running out.”
