Volodymyr Zelensky praises $61billion US military aid to Ukraine after House of Representatives finally approved package following months of delay - sparking fury in Moscow

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has praised a $61billion military aid package that was finally passed by the US' House of Representatives after months of delays. 

The US House of Representatives on Saturday approved long-delayed military aid to Ukraine in a rare show of bipartisan unity, while also bolstering Israel and Taiwan defenses and threatening to ban Chinese-owned TikTok.

The four bills in the $95 billion package, which included the $61bn aid package for Ukraine, were overwhelmingly approved in quick succession, though they leave the future of Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson in some doubt as he seeks to fend off angry far-right detractors.

US President Joe Biden said in a statement the legislation would 'deliver critical support to Israel and Ukraine; provide desperately needed humanitarian aid to Gaza, Sudan, Haiti and other locations... and bolster security and stability in the Indo-Pacific.'

He praised lawmakers who came together across party lines 'to answer history's call.'

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky (pictured, left) has praised a $61billion military aid package that was finally passed by the US' House of Representatives after months of delays

Rescuers and workers clean debris in a turbine hall full of scorched equipments at a power plant of energy provider DTEK, destroyed after an attack, in an undisclosed location in Ukraine on April 19, 2024

Workers clean debris in a turbine hall full of scorched equipments at a power plant of energy provider DTE

Zelensky welcomed the $61 billion earmarked for his country, saying the military and economic assistance would 'save thousands and thousands of lives.'

Not surprisingly, Russia took the opposite view.

'It will further enrich the United States of America and ruin Ukraine even more, by killing even more Ukrainians because of the Kyiv regime,' said presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov, state news agency TASS reported.

The US Senate will take the bill up on Tuesday. Senate approval would then send the measure to Biden for his signature.

The bills are the product of months of acrimonious negotiations, pressure from US allies and repeated pleas for assistance from Zelensky.

The United States has been the chief military backer of Ukraine in its war against Russia, but Congress has not approved large-scale funding for its ally for nearly a year and a half, mainly because of cross-aisle bickering.

Biden and Democratic lawmakers in Congress have been pushing for a major new weapons package for Ukraine for months.

But Republicans, influenced by the party's presidential candidate Donald Trump, have been reluctant to provide funding to Kyiv for the drawn-out conflict.

Ukrainian servicemen with the 28th Separate Mechanized Brigade fire a mortar at Russian forces on the front line near the city of Bakhmut

A Ukrainian officer with the 56th Separate Motorized Infantry Mariupol Brigade fires rockets from a pickup truck at Russian positions on the front line near Bakhmut

Ukrainian servicemen of 93rd brigade fire a 2S1 Gvozdika self propelled howitzer towards Russian troops

Ukrainian soldiers carry shells to fire at Russian positions on the front line

The financing of the war has become a point of contention ahead of a presidential election in November that is expected to pit Biden against Trump once again.

Johnson, after months of hesitation, finally threw his support behind the aid package for Ukraine.

'To put it bluntly, I'd rather send bullets to Ukraine than American boys,' Johnson said.

The handful of far-right Republicans who had threatened to engineer Johnson's ouster if he pressed the Ukraine vote appeared to back away Saturday, at least temporarily.

'I'm actually going to let my colleagues go home and hear from their constituents' about their anger over the vote, congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene said on CNN.

The Ukraine bill also allows Biden to confiscate and sell Russian assets and provide the money to Ukraine to finance reconstruction, a move that has been embraced by other G7 nations.

More than $6bn of frozen assets are sat in US banks, and under the newly passed REPO Act, Biden will be allowed to confiscate these and transfer them to a special fund for Ukraine. 

The $6bn comes in the form of foreign currency reserves of the Russian government, invested over several years to keep the ruble stable. 

Overall, Russia invested $300bn in foreign currency, and almost all of this has been frozen by Western governments. Much of it sits in Germany, France and Belgium.