The Biden administration announced on Monday it is preparing to send $200 million in military aid to Ukraine to help the eastern European nation amid its ongoing conflict with Russia. The new aid package comes amid Americans’ increasing opposition to continually shipping U.S. dollars to Ukraine.
According to a press statement from Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the $200 million in U.S. aid will include “air defense munitions, artillery rounds, anti-armor capabilities, and additional mine-clearing equipment.” The announcement came days after the White House asked Congress to authorize an additional $24 billion in aid to Ukraine, which comes on top of the $113 billion already committed by the U.S. last year.
“Every day, Russia is killing Ukrainian civilians and destroying civil infrastructure, while also weaponizing hunger and contributing to global food insecurity through its destruction of Ukraine’s civilian ports and grain infrastructure,” Blinken said.
It’s remarkable how the Biden administration is terribly concerned about “hunger” and “food insecurity” among Ukrainians but not their own country’s soldiers. Last week, Military.com reported that one of the U.S. Army’s largest bases, Fort Cavazos — formerly known as Fort Hood — has “been barely able to keep its food services up and running for months.”
According to the report, the Texas base “had only two of its 10 major dining options open every day for much of the summer, with three others open only during limited times.” The primary cause of such issues is that the base’s dining facilities don’t “hav[e] enough Army cooks to run them.”
While the closures of dining facilities led many service members “to drive long distances across base, sometimes an hour round trip for their meals,” some were left out to fend for themselves, as “not all junior soldiers have vehicles, and the base provides only a limited shuttle service, with none dedicated to dining facilities.”
“For months, one [dining facility] was open and was a more than 30-minute drive for my soldiers,” an unnamed noncommissioned officer told Military.com. “All the soldiers were going to that one. It’s unmanageable during the workday.”
[READ: While You Pinch Inflated Pennies, Congress Sent $900 Of Your Household Income To Ukraine]
While Congress and the Biden administration insist on shipping billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to Ukraine with virtually no oversight, the majority of Americans ardently oppose such a policy. A recent CNN poll found that 55 percent of Americans believe Congress “should not authorize additional funding to support Ukraine vs. 45% who say Congress should authorize such funding.”
The poll additionally found a slight majority (51 percent) who agreed the U.S. “has already done enough” to help Ukraine in its effort to repel Russia’s invasion. The statistic is a noticeable change from February 2022, when 62 percent believed America should have “been doing more” to help Ukraine.
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