This is reported by Militarnyi with reference to the post of the Ambassador of Ukraine to the USA Oksana Markarova. So far, we are talking only about the draft budget, which is being discussed by the House of Representatives and the US Senate, but there are reasons to believe that this article will remain in the final version of the budget.

Both the US House of Representatives and the US Senate are proposing a significant increase in the military budget, even compared to the project proposed by the administration of President Joe Biden. If $773 billion was set aside for military spending in the presidential team’s project, the House of Representatives demands that this amount be increased by $37 billion, and the US Senate even more – by $45 billion. One of the articles that were added as a result of these amendments concerns the training program for the Ukrainian pilots and ground personnel to familiarize themselves with American combat aircraft. That is, we can hope that the planes will still be given to us, at least next year.

In addition, the project has a section on the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), within the framework of which another $1 billion will be allocated. Let’s emphasize that this separate money, which is allocated independently of the funds under the presidential initiative (those from which the supply of weapons is financed now) and the future Lend-Lease, which should become operational only at the end of summer or in fa.

Currently, the House of Representatives and the US Senate must discuss both budget projects and create an agreed version, which will be signed by President Joe Biden.

It is interesting that according to preliminary plans, the budget of the US Department of Defense for 2023 was supposed to be only $737 billion (the budget for 2022 was equal to $722 billion in general), but the Russian invasion of Ukraine made significant adjustments to it.

In general, the US defense budget has been the largest in the world for many years, or rather decades, and accounts for more than a third of global military spending. China is in second place with 14% of global spending. Then come India and Great Britain. Russia is only in fifth (place) – its military budget is 10 times smaller than the American one.

The defense budget of Ukraine for 2021 amounted to only 121.7 billion hryvnias (about $4.9 billion), that is, it is an order of magnitude less than the military expenditures of the Russian Federation, and two orders of magnitude lower than that of the United States.