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US Congress lower house green-lights bill to give Kiev another $300 mln in military aid

The bill also stipulates the allocation of $20 mln earmarked for tightening oversight over Ukraine’s expenditure of funds received from the US

WASHINGTON, September 29. /TASS/. The full US House of Representatives, lower house of the US Congress, on Thursday green-lighted the provision of yet another assistance package for Kiev, this one worth $300 mln which had previously been carved out of the draft US defense budget and spun off as a separate bill, according to the legislative proceedings as broadcast by the C-SPAN public affairs TV channel.

Voting in favor of providing the assistance package were 311 members of the Republican-controlled 435-member chamber, while 117 representatives voted against the bill. The funds are being allocated as part of Washington’s ongoing security assistance initiative for Kiev. The program calls for the US Department of Defense (DoD) to conclude agreements with defense contractors, but does not involve the Pentagon providing Kiev with equipment directly from its own stockpiles. The bill also stipulates the allocation of $20 mln earmarked for tightening oversight over Ukraine’s expenditure of funds received from the US.

According to authoritative Washington publication Politico, US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (Republican, California) managed earlier to carve the latest Ukrainian aid proposal out of the overall defense budget into a separate bill in the expectation that this would ensure garnering greater support among his Republican caucus during the vote on the draft US defense budget.

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Ukraine crisis United States

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