‘We’re Still In’
Foreign Policy
U.S. President Joe Biden (center) talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (left) as French President Emmanuel Macron (right) looks on at the start of commemoration events for D-Day in Normandy, France, on June 6.Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images
U.S. President Joe Biden apologized to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Paris on Friday for the monthslong congressional delay in approving the latest U.S. aid package. The meeting, on the sidelines of D-Day commemoration events, was their first face-to-face encounter since Zelensky visited Washington last December to request greater military support.
U.S. Republicans—some who directly opposed sending additional aid to Ukraine and others who wanted the funding package, which also earmarked billions of dollars in aid for Israel, to include additional money for security at the U.S. southern border—had stalled the nearly $61 billion aid deal for months before passing the package in April. “I apologize for those weeks of not knowing what’s going to happen in terms of funding,” Biden told Zelensky, adding that “we’re still in. Completely. Thoroughly.”
Biden also announced a new $225 million tranche to help Kyiv reconstruct its electric grid, which has been decimated by Russian attacks in recent months. The package also includes air defense interceptors, artillery ammunition, and other critical capabilities to strengthen Ukraine’s war effort. Zelensky, in turn, likened U.S. support to Washington’s efforts in Europe during World War II. On Thursday, amid events marking the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings, Biden gave an interview to ABC World News in which he called Russian President Vladimir Putin “a dictator” and drew parallels between Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and the actions of Nazi Germany.
“The struggle between a dictatorship and freedom is unending,” Biden said. “To surrender to bullies, to bow down to dictators is simply unthinkable. Were we to do that, it means we would be forgetting what happened here on these hallowed beaches.”
Zelensky and Biden will meet again next week at the G-7 summit in Italy, where they will discuss using frozen Russian assets to provide Kyiv with $50 billion in aid. The United States is by far Ukraine’s biggest military supplier. Last week, Biden granted Kyiv permission to use U.S.-supplied weapons to target military sites inside Russian territory near Ukraine’s Kharkiv region so long as the operations are in self-defense. The decision, which Germany quickly copied, comes as Moscow has renewed attacks on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, in recent weeks. Kharkiv is located around 25 miles from the Russian border.
In response, Putin warned Washington and its allies on Wednesday that he could deploy weapons to countries within striking distance of the West and that the United States should not assume that Russia will always rule out using nuclear weapons. While at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on Friday, though, Putin said there was no need for nuclear warfareright now.
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