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(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden on Thursday announced an additional $800 million package in military assistance to Ukraine — as well as a ban on all Russian-affiliated ships from U.S. ports — as Russian forces launch a long-expected, large-scale campaign to seize the country’s east.

“We’re in a critical window now of time where — they’re going to set the stage for the next phase of this war,” Biden said from the White House Roosevelt Room, adding the U.S. and allies will continue to provide Ukraine with “equipment they need — their forces need — to defend their nation.”

Biden said the new aid package will include “heavy artillery weapons, dozens of howitzers, and 144,000 rounds of ammunition to go with those howitzers,” as well as tactical drones.

It follows another of similar size, which Biden announced last week, but focuses more on artillery and ammunition, U.S. officials told ABC News earlier this week.

Biden said the U.S. has sent “equipment that is responsive to Ukraine’s needs and tailored to support the intensified fighting in the Donbas region, which is a different war than in other places because both topographically, it’s different — it’s flat, it’s not in the mountains — and it requires different kinds of weapons to be more effective.”

“Every American taxpayer, every member of our armed forces can be proud of the fact that our country’s generosity — and the skill and service of our military — helped arm and repel Russia’s aggression in Ukraine to beat back Putin’s savagery that tried to seize Ukraine’s capital and wipe out Ukraine’s government,” Biden added.

With this latest package, the U.S. is on track to having announced about $3 billion in military aid since the start started in late February. In particular, this is the eighth tranche of U.S. assistance from the Pentagon’s existing stockpile, using what’s known as presidential drawdown authority to expedite delivery.

As more than 5 million have fled Ukraine since the war began, Biden also announced a new program dubbed “Unite for Ukraine” to fast-track Ukrainian refugees coming to the U.S.

“This new humanitarian parole program will complement the existing legal pathways available to Ukrainians, including immigrant visas and refugees processing” and “provide an expedient channel for secure legal migration from Europe to the United States for Ukrainians, who have a U.S. sponsor such as a family or an NGO,” Biden said.

Beginning April 25, the administration says U.S.-based individuals and entities can apply to the Department of Homeland Security to sponsor Ukrainian citizens. Those who apply to sponsor Ukrainians will be required to declare their financial support and pass a background check, according to administration officials, and there is no limit on how many Ukrainians a person or entity can sponsor.

“This program will be fast, it will be streamlined, and will ensure the United States honors its commitment to go to the people of Ukraine and need not go through our southern border,” Biden added.

“That means no ship, no ship that sails on the Russian flag or that is owned or operated by Russian interest would be allowed to dock on the united States port or access our shores. None,” he said.

After meeting with Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal ahead of his remarks, Biden again called on Congress to provide more funding for weapons and ammunition because existing money is “almost exhausted,” he said, even with an additional $500 million in economic aid to Ukraine’s government the Treasury Department also announced Thursday, separate from the latest $800 million military package.

Russia offered another ultimatum Wednesday to allow Ukrainian fighters to leave a steel plant in Mariupol — but those fighters, for days, have refused to surrender. Finally seizing the strategic port city after weeks of besiegement and bombardment would help give Russian forces a land bridge between Crimea, which Russia has occupied since 2014, and the eastern provinces known as the Donbas, where Russian-led separatists have battled the Ukrainian government since 2014, too.

The Donbas is expected to be Russia’s focus now, but the U.S. remains concerned that Russian forces will target the paths in western Ukraine being used to ship Western military aid into the country, a defense official told ABC News.

While they have not done so yet, cutting off those supply routes will help the Kremlin isolate Ukrainian forces in the east, the official added.

The U.S. believes Russians will target the paths in western Ukraine being used to ship in Western military aid in order to isolate Ukrainian forces in the east, a defense official told ABC News.

“Right now, we know from our discussions with the Ukrainians that they are getting this material,” a defense official said Tuesday. “It’s getting into the hands of their fighters.”

The U.S. and other Western countries have now provided Ukraine with close to 70,000 anti-tank weapons, including several varieties of shoulder-fired missiles. The number of shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles that the U.S. and other countries have sent to Ukraine is nearing 30,000.

Those missiles have been used by Ukrainian forces to great effect, but as the battle shifts from Ukraine’s major cities and suburbs to the more flat eastern provinces, Kyiv’s troops will need more artillery and ammunition instead.

Four flights carrying military aid from the $800 million drawdown package Biden announced last week arrived in Ukraine over the last 24 hours, some of them carrying U.S. howitzers and 155mm ammunition for them, a senior defense official said Wednesday, adding more equipment will arrive over the next 24 hours.

ABC News asked the official why the U.S. decided to send U.S. artillery to the Ukrainians.

“We’re mindful of the importance of artillery in the fight that they’re in right now and in the fighting in the days to come because of the terrain, and because of what we think they’re going to be up against with Russian forces,” the official responded. Another reason was “the fact that it wouldn’t require an onerous amount of training for the Ukrainians to know how to use them” and the ability to ship them quickly, according to the official.

After Biden called Russia’s actions in Ukraine “genocide” for the first time last week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Wednesday that the same horrors witnessed in Bucha — “death, destruction, atrocities” — may take place in the eastern city of Mariupol “at some point,” even as Russian forces seem already poised to fully capture the strategic city.

“We can only anticipate that when this tide also at some point recedes from Mariupol, we’re going to see far worse — if that’s possible to imagine,” Blinken said. “So the conditions there, the situation there as a result of this Russian aggression are truly horrific.”

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden on Thursday was set to announce an additional $800 million package of military assistance to Ukraine as Russian forces launch a long-expected, large-scale campaign to seize the country’s east.

The aid package follows another of similar size, which Biden announced last week, but focuses more on artillery and ammunition, U.S. officials told ABC News.

With this latest package, the U.S. is on track to having announced about $3 billion in military aid since the start started in late February. In particular, this is the eighth tranche of U.S. assistance from the Pentagon’s existing stockpile, using what’s known as presidential drawdown authority to expedite delivery.

Russia offered another ultimatum Wednesday to allow Ukrainian fighters to leave a steel plant in Mariupol — but those fighters, for days, have refused to surrender. Finally seizing the strategic port city after weeks of besiegement and bombardment would help give Russian forces a land bridge between Crimea, which Russia has occupied since 2014, and the eastern provinces known as the Donbas, where Russian-led separatists have battled the Ukrainian government since 2014, too.

The Donbas is expected to be Russia’s focus now, but the U.S. remains concerned that Russian forces will target the paths in western Ukraine being used to ship Western military aid into the country, a defense official told ABC News.

While they have not done so yet, cutting off those supply routes will help the Kremlin isolate Ukrainian forces in the east, the official added.

The U.S. believes Russians will target the paths in western Ukraine being used to ship in Western military aid in order to isolate Ukrainian forces in the east, a defense official told ABC News.

“Right now, we know from our discussions with the Ukrainians that they are getting this material,” a defense official said Tuesday. “It’s getting into the hands of their fighters.”

The U.S. and other Western countries have now provided Ukraine with close to 70,000 anti-tank weapons, including several varieties of shoulder-fired missiles. The number of shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles that the U.S. and other countries have sent to Ukraine is nearing 30,000.

Those missiles have been used by Ukrainian forces to great effect, but as the battle shifts from Ukraine’s major cities and suburbs to the more flat eastern provinces, Kyiv’s troops will need more artillery and ammunition instead.

Four flights carrying military aid from the $800 million drawdown package Biden announced last week arrived in Ukraine over the last 24 hours, some of them carrying U.S. howitzers and 155mm ammunition for them, a senior defense official said Wednesday, adding more equipment will arrive over the next 24 hours.

ABC News asked the official why the U.S. decided to send U.S. artillery to the Ukrainians.

“We’re mindful of the importance of artillery in the fight that they’re in right now and in the fighting in the days to come because of the terrain, and because of what we think they’re going to be up against with Russian forces,” the official responded.

Another reason was “the fact that it wouldn’t require an onerous amount of training for the Ukrainians to know how to use them” and the ability to ship them quickly, according to the official.

More than five million people have fled Ukraine since the start of the war, according to the United Nations.

After Biden called Russia’s actions in Ukraine “genocide” for the first time last week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Wednesday that the same horrors witnessed in Bucha — “death, destruction, atrocities” — may take place in the eastern city of Mariupol “at some point,” even as Russian forces seem already poised to fully capture the strategic city.

“We can only anticipate that when this tide also at some point recedes from Mariupol, we’re going to see far worse — if that’s possible to imagine,” Blinken said. “So the conditions there, the situation there as a result of this Russian aggression are truly horrific.”

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — The Biden administration on Thursday announced it is moving to fast-track Ukrainian refugees coming to the United States.

Beginning April 25, the administration says U.S.-based individuals and entities can apply to the Department of Homeland Security to sponsor Ukrainian citizens — in an operation dubbed “Uniting for Ukraine.”

Any U.S. citizen or entity can apply sponsor Ukrainians and will be required to declare their financial support and pass a background check. Administration officials said there is no limit on how many Ukrainians a person or entity can sponsor.

“We are anticipating obviously a large majority of individuals who applied for this process go through this process role in my family units,” a senior administration official told reporters on a conference call Thursday.

Any Ukrainian who has been a resident of the country since Feb. 11 and has up to date vaccinations will be eligible for the program. They will be subject to a background check and biometric screening and other security checks.

Once in the U.S, Ukrainians will have up to two years to be considered for parole, but officials said they anticipate the length of time in the U.S. to be short term.

“What many of us have heard out in the region in Eastern Europe is a lot of Ukrainians don’t even want to go further east, from the border countries in Eastern Europe, because it’s a situation where women and children are separated from their husbands, fathers brothers, and so they’re quite keen staying near Ukraine to return as soon as possible,” one official said.

Administration officials told reporters on Thursday they hope it will be a “streamlined process” through an online portal where sponsors and Ukrainian nationals can both upload documents after being approved.

They said they anticipate the process to be “fairly quick,” but didn’t offer an exact timeframe.

Ukrainians who don’t have a visa to enter the U.S. will be encouraged to apply for this program as they say it’s the safest way to enter the U.S., officials said.

Administration officials said this was part of President Joe Biden’s promise to take in 100,000 Ukrainians into the United States.

“We are proud to deliver on President Biden’s commitment to welcome 100,000 Ukrainians and others fleeing Russian aggression to the United States. The Ukrainian people continue to suffer immense tragedy and loss as a result of Putin’s unprovoked and unjustified attack on their country,” said Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas. “DHS will continue to provide relief to the Ukrainian people, while supporting our European allies who have shouldered so much as the result of Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine.”

As of late, some Ukrainians seeking asylum in the U.S. have been going to the U.S.-Mexico border. The administration says after April 25, Ukrainians who present themselves at a border port of entry will be denied entry into the U.S. and referred to the “Uniting for Ukraine” program.

Ukrainians “may be refused entry under our existing laws as I think everybody knows, we are continuing to enforce the public health authority under Title 42 at the land border to the 23rd that will be the case for all nationalities,” one senior administration official said.

Title 42, the Trump-era policy which expelled migrants on the basis of the pandemic is set to be phased out by the administration on May 23.

That official added that applying for the program may be a little bit more difficult if the applicant isn’t up to date on vaccines because it could be a “little bit harder” to get vaccinated in Mexico.

For those who don’t have sponsors, friends or family in the United States, the administration is working with NGO’s and nonprofit organizations to help connect people to them.

“One of the reasons we are having sponsors that are entity based…is precisely to deal with those situations,” one administration official said.

In addition to this program, which they say is new, the State Department will expand resettlement operations in Europe for Ukrainian citizens.

Administration officials said the State Department is helping 18,000 Ukrainians in Eastern Europe resettle, including those considered especially vulnerable, citing LGBTQ refugees as an example.

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