Approval of $61bn aid from US shows Ukraine will not be abandoned, says Zelenskiy

Ukraine’s president said the vote on Saturday by the US House of Representatives to pass a long-delayed $61bn military aid package demonstrated that his country would not abandoned by the west in its effort to fight the Russian invasion.

Voldoymyr Zelenskiy said in an interview with US television that the vote showed Ukraine would not be “a second Afghanistan”, whose pro-western government collapsed during an American-led pullout in the summer of 2021.

The Ukrainian president urged the US Senate to ratify the aid package rapidly and warned that his country was preparing its defences, fearing there could be a large Russian offensive before the fresh supplies reach the frontline.

“We really need to get this to the final point. We need to get it approved by the Senate … so that we get some tangible assistance for the soldiers on the frontline as soon as possible, not in another six months,” he said.

The Senate is expected to come out of recess on Tuesday to hold its first vote on the package – similar to one it had already voted for in February – with the US president, Joe Biden, promising to sign it into law swiftly after it passes Congress.

That would end months of wrangling in which Donald Trump-aligned Republicans in the House had refused to allow Ukraine aid, and which was part of a larger aid package with money for Israel and Taiwan, to be debated in the lower chamber.

The US has only been able to committed $300m of military aid to Ukraine this year, after the budget previously authorised by Congress was spent, leading to deterioration of the frontline position and the loss of Avdiivka in the eastern Donbas because of a shortage of artillery and other munitions.

However, the opposition of Republicans faded following Iran’s drone and missile attack on Israel more than a week ago, which used similar tactics to Russian attacks on Ukraine, and underlined – among some rightwing politicians – the need to provide Israel and Ukraine with further support.

US officials have signalled that some weapons were in European warehouses, ready to be moved into Ukraine at short notice once Biden decides exactly what to supply in the first round after the overall funding has been approved.

Zelenskiy said that his immediate priorities were air-defence systems, such as the US made Patriots, and long-range missiles, such as Atacms, which have a range of 300km and which the House has called on the Pentagon to provide promptly.

“We need long-range weapons to not lose people on the frontline because we have – we have casualties because we cannot reach that far. Our weapons are not that long-range. We need [that] and air defence. Those are our priorities right now,” the president said in an interview with NBC News.

Ukraine is thought to have only two Patriot anti-missile systems, one of which it uses to defend Kyiv, while the other has been deployed closer to the battlefield, in effect leaving large parts of the country exposed.

Russia has knocked out several power stations by targeting them with several missiles, causing electricity shortages in some parts of the country, including the second city of Kharkiv, home to 1.3 million people. A power station south of Kyiv was destroyed in one night a little more than a week ago in a similar assault.