When Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a surprise visit to Kyiv last week, he not only promised more than $1 billion in new aid to Ukraine but also signaled the Biden administration’s fixation on climate change by reiterating an earlier pledge to provide $520 million to help Ukraine make “cleaner” energy.
Mr. Blinken made the remarks during a joint press conference with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, which focused on various types of support, including humanitarian, military, and infrastructure.
The new funding includes more than $665 million in new military and civilian security assistance. There’s also $203 million to support what the U.S. State Department described as “transparency and accountability of institutions” as part of Ukraine’s reform efforts relating to the rule of law and anti-corruption.
“We’re making new investments to enhance the transparency of Ukraine’s institutions and to bolster the rule of law so that Ukraine’s democracy is even more responsive to the needs of its people and can attract the private capital needed to rebuild,” Mr. Blinken said.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the introduction of the Bureau of Global Health Security and Diplomacy at the State Department in Washington on Aug. 1, 2023. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times
Then, after pledging unwavering support for Kyiv and detailing some of the military items the $1 billion in new aid would be buying, Mr. Blinken reminded his Ukrainian counterpart that the Biden administration intends to make good on an earlier pledge for another half billion dollars to help Ukraine produce cleaner energy.
“At the Ukraine Recovery Conference held in London a few months ago, I pledged that the United States would invest more than $520 million in making Ukraine’s energy infrastructure—more than half of which has been destroyed by Russia—cleaner, more resilient, and more integrated with Europe,” he said.
Mr. Blinken’s remarks in Kyiv about spending half a billion dollars to help clean up Ukraine’s energy grid didn’t go unnoticed on this side of the Atlantic, with former President Donald Trump taking to social media in an expression of apparent incredulity.
“We just sent $520,000,000 to Ukraine to ’make their energy cleaner,'” President Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Former President Donald Trump speaks at a CNN Town Hall at St. Anselm College in Manchester, N.H., on May 10, 2023, in a still from video. CNN/Screenshot via The Epoch Times
EV Tanks to Fight Climate Change
President Trump has been a longtime critic of the Biden administration’s energy policies, arguing that President Joe Biden is prioritizing a misguided fight against an overblown threat of climate change.
President Biden has set a goal to halve U.S. greenhouse gas output by 2030 as part of an international pledge to fight global warming.
His efforts on the climate front have extended even to military vehicle emissions, which President Trump referenced in a follow-up post on Truth Social on Sept. 8.
“The Biden Administration wants to now make our Army Tanks all Electric so that, despite the fact that they will not be able to go very far, fewer pollutants will be released into the air,” President Trump wrote.
On April 22, a date also known as “Earth Day,” President Biden pledged to make all military vehicles climate-friendly by 2030.
“We’re going to start the process where every vehicle in the United States military, every vehicle, is going to be climate-friendly—every vehicle,” President Biden said in Seattle on April 22, 2022. “I mean it. We’re spending billions of dollars to do it.”
President Biden’s remarks about electrifying the entire Pentagon vehicle fleet raised eyebrows among analysts.
Maiya Clark, a senior research associate at the Heritage Foundation’s Center for National Defense, said in a note that making every one of those vehicles “climate-friendly ... would place service members at increased risk, as well as bankrupt the Department of Defense.”
The American Energy Alliance, the advocacy arm of the Institute for Energy Research, a Washington-based energy research group, called the idea to electrify tanks “deranged.”
“Just imagine a son or daughter in an EV military tank operated by enormous and heavy batteries that go dead in the middle of battle with no ability to be recharged quickly or at all, because the opposing side is advancing with modern weapons fueled by petroleum as that country is using the world’s resources to their most suited uses,” the group wrote in a note.
While Mr. Blinken was in Ukraine pledging that the United States is “committed to empowering Ukraine to write its own future” and assisting with the country’s long-term security arrangements, there was less enthusiasm in Congress for more aid.
Looming Showdown Over Ukraine Aid
President Biden’s latest request for Ukraine assistance faced new hurdles in Congress on Sept. 7 as factions of Republicans argued over federal spending ahead of a looming October government shutdown.
Last month, President Biden asked Congress to approve $40 billion in additional spending, including $24 billion for Ukraine and other international needs and $16 billion in disaster relief.
The president’s request is testing America’s willingness to keep supporting Ukraine during its counteroffensive against Russian forces.
The Senate and House of Representatives are due to consider the request this month, possibly adding it to a short-term spending bill to keep the government open after Sept. 30 while they debate a budget for next year.
The Republican-majority House is divided, with many Republicans backing the aid but some of the party’s members calling for an end to the Ukraine assistance.
Reuters contributed to this report.
Tom Ozimek
Reporter
Tom Ozimek is a senior reporter for The Epoch Times. He has a broad background in journalism, deposit insurance, marketing and communications, and adult education.
