US House approves $100m in funding to train Ukrainian pilots
The United States House of Representatives has approved an amendment for the defense budget bill for 2023 to train Ukrainian pilots on F-15 and F-16 fighter jets amid the reeling crisis in Ukraine, ANI reported, citing the head of the Ukrainian presidential office, Andriy Yermak.
The training program for the Ukrainian pilots will cost 100 million US dollars, Yermak said on Friday, adding that the draft law must be passed by the US Senate and later signed by US President Joe Biden to come into effect.As per the reports by Xinhua, Ukrainian Ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova said that the US defense budget bill for 2023 envisages allocating Ukraine 1 billion dollars in security aid in the 2023 fiscal year which runs between Oct 1, 2022, and Sept 30, 2023.
US security assistance to Ukraine has turned out to be more than USD 6.1 billion since Russia launched its "brutal, unprovoked, full-scale invasion" of Ukraine on February 24.
Earlier, condemning Russia's "premeditated, unprovoked, unjustified, and brutal war" on Ukraine, Blinken had said that the US will continue to provide Ukraine with the arms to defend itself and the steady flow of US security assistance from the coalition of more than 40 Allies and partners will continue to bolster Ukraine's defenses as well as improve its ability to defend its sovereign territory and secure hard-fought victories on the battlefield.