In Europe for urgent NATO meetings about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Biden has announced that the US will now take in 100,000 refugees while acknowledging that many wanted to stay in Europe.
The US will also donate $1 billion to help European countries bucking under a huge influx of refugees.
The United States also hit Russia with a new round of sanctions on Thursday and the G7 warned Putin against using chemical warfare in his fight to annex Ukraine.
Speaking via a video link from Kyiv, President Zelensky made another urgent plea for military aid telling the world leaders that his country was under siege, trapped “in the ‘gray zone’ between the West and Russia.”
In the transcript released by Ukraine, the county’s leader pleaded that ‘NATO has yet to show what the Alliance can do to save people ‘and urged the West to step up and give ‘1% of all your tanks and planes’ along with a delivery of more anti-ship missiles.
‘You can give us one percent of all your aircraft. One percent of all your tanks. One percent! We can’t just buy it. Such a supply directly depends only on NATO’s decisions, on political decisions, by the way.’
‘MLRS (multiple launch rocket systems) systems. Anti-ship weapons. Means of air defense. Is it possible to survive such a war without it?’ Zelensky said.
Near the end of the first day of marathon meetings Biden announced:
‘In the past few weeks, the United States has announced $1 billion in new security assistance to Ukraine — anti-aircraft systems, anti-armor weapons, drones, and millions of rounds of ammunition. I welcome the steps by many other Allies to provide defensive support to Ukraine and together, we are committed to identifying additional equipment, including air defense systems, to help Ukraine.’