Biden signs aid package for Ukraine, shipments to begin "immediately"

US president Joe Biden signed the $61 billion aid package for Ukraine on Wednesday. The first shipments of US military equipment to Ukraine will take place within hours, the president confirmed.

The aid package for Ukraine is worth $61 billion and is part of a larger bill containing aid for Israel and Taiwan. It was the final hurdle for the bill after passing the US Senate on Tuesday and the House of Representatives a few days earlier. It took months for the US to approve aid to Ukraine because of Republican opposition.

At the signing, Biden said he would ensure that "the shipments begin immediately". The first shipment, worth more than $1 billion, should be on its way within hours, the president said.

"We bow to no one. Certainly not to Vladimir Putin."

"We bow to no one. We bow to no one. Certainly not to Vladimir Putin. We don't abandon our allies, we support them. We don't let tyrants win, we stand up to them. We don't watch the world change, we make it change," Biden said. "That's what it means to be a great power."

Ukraine president Volodymir Zelensky thanked Biden in a response on X. "I am grateful to president Biden, Congress, and all Americans who recognize that we must cut the ground under Putin's feet rather than obeying him," he wrote.

^{US President Joe Biden signs into law the Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act of 2022. ​ PHOTO © Nicholas Kamm / AFP}