The Biden administration announced earlier this week a loan of $20 billion to Ukraine, financed by proceeds from frozen Russian assets, just weeks before President-elect Donald Trump, who has talked about ending financial aid to the country as well as the fighting, takes office.
Reports said that the funding is part of a larger $50 billion G7 support package and arrives just over a month before President Joe Biden leaves the White House.
These loan funds come at a critical time for Kyiv, as President-elect Donald Trump has already expressed a desire for an immediate settlement between the two parties instead of continuing to fund what he describes as an endless war, Breitbart News reported.
Trump has increasingly questioned the financial support provided to Ukraine following Russia’s 2022 invasion, stating as recently as last weekend that he will “probably” reduce aid to Kyiv.
“These funds — paid for by the windfall proceeds earned from Russia’s own immobilized assets — will provide Ukraine a critical infusion of support as it defends its country against an unprovoked war of aggression,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement.
The G7’s loans “will help ensure Ukraine has the resources it needs to sustain emergency services, hospitals and other foundations of its brave resistance,” Yellen added, per an AFP report.
The loan comes just days after Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Paris, France, alongside French President Emmanuel Macron during the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral five years after it was ravaged by fire.
The support “will strengthen Ukraine’s defense and help protect our sovereignty and people against unprovoked aggression,” Zelenskyy said in a statement.
The Treasury stated that Washington had already transferred $20 billion to the World Bank, which will make these funds available to Ukraine through an existing program. The additional funds will almost assuredly prolong the conflict at a time when the incoming administration will hit the ground next month with a plan to end the nearly two-year-old war that has reportedly killed hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians.
Trump’s ending support to Ukraine, meanwhile, was popular on the campaign trail, especially as Americans continued to suffer from open borders and lack of emergency assistance following natural disasters like Hurricanes Helene and Milton.
Earlier in the week before the Biden administration made the loan, House Speaker Mike Johnson stated that no additional aid should be provided to Ukraine before Trump’s inauguration.
Johnson emphasized that Trump, once he assumes the presidency in January, should make the decision to allocate further aid to Ukraine.
“As we predicted and as I said to all of you weeks before the election, if Donald Trump is elected, it will change the dynamic of the Russian war on Ukraine, and we’re seeing that happen,” the Louisiana leader of the House said during a House Republican leadership press conference.
He stated that Trump’s electoral victory will alter the dynamic of the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
“So it is not the place of Joe Biden to make that decision now. We have a newly elected president, and we’re going to wait and take the new commander-in-chief’s direction on all that, so I don’t expect any Ukraine funding to come up now,” Johnson added.
The Biden administration requested $8 billion in security assistance for Ukraine, which includes military equipment, funding for training its armed forces, and additional support. The Department of Defense (DOD) requested an additional $16 billion to provide Ukraine with more resources.
In September, Trump said he would work to end the war in Ukraine even before he takes office.
“I want to get Russia to settle up with Ukraine and stop this — millions of people being killed, far greater than the number you read about. But I want to get that done before I even take office, I want to get that done as president-elect, because it has to be solved — too many people dying, too many cities are just in rubble right now, you look at the cultures just being destroyed,” he said at the time.