President Biden Asked Congress to allocate more than 24 billion for additional aid to ukraine and other expenses since the beginning of russias fullscale invasion of ukraine, congress has already approved giving ukraine about 113 billion dollars of government funding under some current programs in the usa is currently supposed to stop on september 30, when the fiscal year officially ends in the country , more about the new aid package and what needs it will cover, lets talk with my colleague ostap yarysh, who closely follows this topic. Greetings ostap ostap tell please, what exactly is the white house proposing now , what sums are we talking about, and what does maria plan to direct it to . Indeed, the white house has now asked congress for additional funding in the amount of 40 billion dollars. It includes various articles, 24 of them, practically 24 billion. The white house is asking for help to ukraine and other International Needs , as they say, what is there in so, first of all, more than 13 billion dollars is being asked by the white house to be used for defense expenses, it is also for armed support of ukraine to replenish the pentagons reserves and to continue other military support for ukraine and its partners. In addition , this sum of eight and a half billion dollars has been pledged. This is for economic, humanitarian and other support for ukraine and other countries, these 8. 5 billion 7 billion and for ukraine, other aa, the rest of the funds aa to help other states, in particular on the african continent, which aa which may find themselves or suffer from the influence of the russian war against ukraine, also a little more than 2 billion has been pledged to the World Bank Program for Infrastructure Projects that had to prevent thai influence on other countries as well. If we talk about these 24 billion, which the white house is now asking for on this article of spending on the remaining articles, the white house is also asking to finance additional programs to ensure a better surveillance on the southern border of the United States, in particular with mexico, as well as to overcome natural disasters and natural disasters here in the United States, we really see that this is such a complex package of assistance, it is possible that it will be approved, what steps are to be taken, when the congress can make a decision from its side, really maria this is only the first step this is only a request from the white house, then a rather long process awaits us ahead of us, we know what must be approved and in order to approve it, this and this request have been considered. This proposal has the house of representatives to consider the consideration must be agreed by the majority of the representatives the majority of the american legislators is only after if they agree they can make their amendments they can disagree they can make some differences they can add something and only as two chambers after the two chambers of the Congress Come the final and final decision then this document will lie there is approximately 1. 5 months left for the signature of the president , and approximately, according to expectations , this request of the white house should be considered by september 30, which is when the current fiscal year ago, we will expect, well, there is still quite a lot of time ahead, and it looks like there will be quite fierce debates on the capital hill, we know that all negotiations regarding the allocation of additional funding always cause discussions between democrats and republicans, what are the current dynamics in congress and well, how do you think or can it be assumed that this vote for these additional finances will not be easy, it seems that it will indeed be difficult at least and more difficult than the previous ones, let me remind you that in the last congress allocated additional financing for ukraine it was back in december of the Previous Year in december 2022, then it was about a little more than 45 billion for ukraine and partners, and then it was still the previous composition of the congress where the majority in the house of representatives, the majority of the majority was for the democrats. Now we know the dynamics, the situation has changed the house of representatives has changed, it is controlled by republicans , the senate still got a majority, and you know maria, if after all, in the senate , the majority supports additional funding for ukraine, both republicans and democrats we heard about this from chuck schumer, the leader of the democrats, and we also heard about this from akonol, the leader of the republicans, so in the house of representatives of this oneroom house. This is not what it looks like. We remember that there is a group and there remains a group of legislators there who spoke against supporting ukraine and against the continuation of funding for ukraine and we remember that during the previous vote, when it came to the defense budget, several amendments were cheerfully introduced that aimed to limit further support for ukraine, among them was an amendment that demanded the cancellation of any defense support for kyiv, and then she got 70 votes, thats about a little less than a third of all republicans in the house of representatives, it wasnt enough, after all, this amendment didnt pass and couldnt get a majority of votes , but it looks like that part of the republicans did oppose it then and analysts are now suggesting that it is possible that the debate will be fierce, given that part of the republicans are not happy with the continued funding of ukraine , additional funding but again , we will still have a month and a half ahead monitor and i think we will hear a lot of arguments for arguments against our correspondent kateryna lisunova. By the way, she works in the congress and previously also spoke with legislators , she heard different opinions, so i think we will be careful during the winter, maria, to monitor and report updates, and if they are as soon as possible they will soon appear on our website and on our broadcast. To you ostap for this detailed analysis, i will remind you that under ostap yaresh we talked about the details of the new request of the white house for assistance to ukraine, and speaking of american legislators, they are now in vacation, but our colleague kateryna lisonova prepared a material about the sidelines of the us congress, about the work of journalists on the capital hill, and also about the turbulent history of the construction and destruction of the us capitol this is the building where the congress meets, she will tell in her story if you stand facing the capitol building, then the Senate Meeting hall is located on the right side, and accordingly , the meeting hall of the house of representatives of the son poles consists of 50 senators and senators, and the house of representatives of 435 congressmen and congresswoman, respectively, all buildings to the left of congress are connected to the house of representatives, here are the kumi of the five houses of representatives and the offices of congressmen and contest moment, and respectively, all buildings to the right of congress are connected to the senate, here are the Senate Committees and offices of senators in fact, the most important events in the congress of the United States of america take place in the committees. It is here that the hearings on ukraine, on russia, on the war, on the issues of confrontation with china and actually on the internal issues of the United States are considered of the states of america, and right here on the sidelines you can meet with legislators and talk about current topics, in particular. On this day, the voice of america was present during the hearings of the Senate Committee on International Relations on ways to bring the russians to justice for atrocities committed in ukraine. Global criminal justice issues ukrainianes good Afternoon Voice of America Ukrainian Service can i ask you a question but very quickly i have to get back to chairing the committee topic of these hearings, the responsibility of the russians for their atrocities, is it possible to bring the russians to justice if the ukrainians do not win this war, they must ukrainian wine world, we need ukraine to win this war, period, for the sake of the freedom of ukraine and for the sake of supporting international law, which prohibits the use of aggression against other countries, but we also must guarantee that putins guilty war crimes will be brought to justice. Her name is kateryna. She is wonderful. The magazine says so. My name is kateryna. Wow, again, this is war in ukraine too. Need to make sure that she survives this war so they will have to do everything they have to do to win this war i have a few more questions for the georgian voice of america one more question very quickly very quickly you will say yes to all the questions so lets go just talk to them and everything is to establish a Good Relationship and then they answer you even if they are in a great hurry, in general, covering the hearings in the house of representatives is no different from this work in the senate, although with some exceptions the work of journalists in the house of representatives has fewer restrictions and rules, but in both houses, if a legislator is in a hurry, you must ask for permission to go with him and sign a comment, and if he allows it, you have the right to do so, we will find a way to get the necessary funding for ukraine, there are many opportunities and we will find a way to do something about it ukraine is at war and it is not a war they chose it is a war imposed on them by Vladimir Putin so ukraine has the right to defend itself thus during the meetings of the House Intelligence Committee the voice of america was able to find out the position of american legislators, the miracle of the explosion of the kakhova hydroelectric power plant the day after the tragedy, this is an unprovoked war of aggression and we have already seen many war crimes , this is another devastating attack on the lives of ordinary ukrainian people while the investigation into who is really to blame or what caused it continues dam breakthrough, the usa will stand firmly on the side of the ukrainian people and the government of ukraine , the construction of the capitol began in 1793 , and the central dome, which lasted for decades was completed after the civil war in 1866, during those stormy times, the military was quartered in the capitol, a kitchen and a hospital were created here, despite all this construction , it continued like this two years before the end of the war , a statue of liberty was symbolically installed on the dome, which is located here and until now, it symbolized the endurance of the nation under during the war, at first the chapter house was used not only for legislative purposes, but also for sunday religious services, and twice in its history it was attacked in 1814, it was partially burned by the british during the war. In 2021, it was stormed by supporters of donald trump who disagreed with the results of the president ial election, this carefully designed building saw fights, shootings, explosives, attacks, destruction and restoration, additions and renovations , the Congress Building is connected to the committee buildings by underground tunnels and even one small underground subway kateryna lisonova konstantin head of the voice of america washington this is the live work of journalists or congress. We thank kateryna lisonova for showing us how this is happening behind the scenes , meanwhile, on friday, the Us Treasury Department announced a new round of sanctions against the russian financial elite. This time , financiers associated with alpha groups, in particular petro aven and mykhailo fridman, who own sense bank in ukraine, were included in the sanctions review list. In july, the nbu announced the withdrawal of this bank from the market and proposed its nationalization, citing the decision of the us treasury, the deputy minister of freedom, adeno emphasized that our International Coalition continues bring to justice those who are involved in a possible unjust and unprovoked invasion of ukraine , the former Us Ambassador to russia said in an interview with the voice of america that ukraine and the western countries need to strengthen their work with the socalled neutral countries that have not yet expressed a clear position on the russian war and Stanford University professor Michael Mackle , according to the diplomat, the recent talks in saudi arabia helped to establish a relationship with such countries, but what position can china play in peace talks and also, what kind of end to this war do the Biden Administration see, see the interview of my colleague from the russian voice of america service, mykhailo komedovsky. Do you think that ermak and his delegation during the negotiations in saudi arabia succeeded in convincing the countries of the global rooster to reconsider their vision of russias war in ukraine in the world an alarming trend is observed, the majority of democratic europe unites for ukraine together with other allies such as the United States, but the global south, africa , latin america, the middle east, asia in these in the regions, there are many countries that stand aside, they vote neutrally in the un, they do not vote together with the proukrainian coalition, but here it is important to understand that they did not vote for russia during the first big vote in the general assembly, russia had only six votes in its favor, and during the last vote, several months ago, they received seven such votes, mali changed her position after the coup detat, which, by the way , was helped and supported by the russians, so the point is not that these states are prorussian, they are neutral, and i believe that in the west, as ukraine also needs to better explain to such countries why putins war is a war of imperialism, it is the same war of imperialism against which all these countries fought 30 or 40 years ago. It does not officially support either russia or ukraine. Do you think china continues to promote its own peace proposals or does it support the peace plan . Of president zelensky i think they are trying to play a very delicate game on the one hand they are trying to stay close to their autocratic partner and ally russia to adhere to the socalled the pact of friends without restrictions is the document they signed with russia before putin invaded ukraine, and on the other hand, not to push back the west and not to go too far so as not to incur sanctions, for me it is very remarkable that they never supported the annexation of crimea in 2014 and the current annexation of four other regions, and i think that the job of president zelensky and his partners in the west, including the United States, is to keep china at bay and hope that china will play a more proactive role its useless, but maintaining a certain neutrality of china , as it has been happening so far, i think is a great achievement of ukrainian diplomacy in ukrainian diplo view in your opinion , how does the Biden Administration see the resolution of the russian war in ukraine, i understand the white houses anxieties and reluctance to participate directly, but if you seek to end the war as soon as possible, the strategy should include a greater number and better quality of weapons for ukraine , as well as more powerful sanctions against russia , because better weapons and i am specifically talking about long range attack Missile Systems and f16 fighter jets yes the provision of such weapons will hasten the end of the war while the absence of these weapons will lead us to a stalemate that could drag on for years and years on this issue i do not agree with the Biden Administration but i know that they are considering the possibility of providing these weapons and i think that this discussion continues in the first version of this interview with the former ambassador of russia and the United States of america to russia , michael mcflunn, see it on our Youtube Channel of the Ukrainian Service of the voice of america and also read the text version on our on the website, we have a lot of interesting interviews with american experts about the russian war against ukraine. Also , follow us on social networks. We are represented on youtube, instagram, facebook and telegram, among other news. On august 7 , another military exercise began in belarus. This time they are taking place a few tens of kilometers from the borders with poland and lithuania, not far from the suvel corridor , in addition, there are about a hundred mercenaries of the wagner pvk in the same area. Poland and lithuania have already said that it is perceived as a provocation and the Prime Minister of poland we, too, morovecki even called it a step towards a further hybrid attack on the territory of poland , my colleague Myroslava Gongadze visited the border of the three countries and will tell how the countries on the eastern flank of nato are preparing for potential threats, i must say that lithuanians and officers with i talked there at the border, they say that they are absolutely ready, they are ready, they have greatly increased surveillance at the border , of course they do not announce where exactly they are, but they constantly appear there on this small well if we talk about this region, it is approximately 40 km from the border between belarus and lithuania and very immediately the border with poland, that is, practically it is such a triangle where three countries connect and from this side to the other to the other on our side of the border on on the belarusian side, military exercises are being conducted in belarus when we were on the polish border. We very clearly heard these exercises that were taking place all the time, there was some noise , movements, thats when two helicopters flew over polish territory, and here we did not see such an active movement in poland. We saw a lot of military equipment at the approaches to the border, a lot of police in these towns near the border with belarus. Here in lithuania, we see much less of this. The atmosphere is quite calm here, and the local military is equipped so easily. Ammunition, and we have not seen such heavy equipment and military as we saw on the polish border with boris, he is experiencing that they are borya, what is the situation on the border of poland, lithuania and belarus , the situation is stable. I would say that the situation is stable, but very tense because there are risks that include illegal activities such as smuggling of goods, but also related to the ongoing conflict between russia and ukraine, in addition, belarus in this sense is part of the aggression, here we see that belarus takes an active part in the aggression against ukraine and the security situation in our region is very tension is also due to the presence of Wagners Group in belarus or wagner aa present intels response to wagners presence in belarus recently poland sent an additional 2,000 troops to the border lithuania is also planning to do something only your measures to solve this problem security we plan to strengthen Border Protection by involving additional Human Resources and technical equipment but in this sense we also count on internal partners the National Police and now we have already deployed Additional Resources on the border the border is now guarded on high alert because we all believe that provocations organized by the lukashenko regime together with the kremlin regime, of course also with the participation of the wagnerites, can be arranged on the border. Well, on the border with belarus we will increase the number of employees we have already agreed in the government additional Financial Resources and very soon we will deploy additional personnel to ensure Border Control in principle again if we talk about the population, they are quite calm , they feel that they are protected by nato and they are not we are all terrified by all these threats, not at the same time, literally. Last week, the government decided not to issue resident cards to more than a thousand russians and belarusians, and today in an interview with me, the head of their service said that they do not see the belarusians as such a huge threat to the russians much more , but at the same time, due to the fact that wagner is on the territory of belarus, they can pretend to be refugees from belarus and come here for that very reason. The country is actually now and the parliament of the country is taking additional immigration measures and eh and also additional questions will be asked to them at the crossing. Even at the beginning of next week, lithuania will close two of its border crossings between belarus and lithuania, among other Important News in the United States, wildfires on the Hawaiian Island of maui that killed at least 55 people, the search for victims of natural disasters is still ongoing, hundreds of local residents have lost their homes and property over 11,000 tourists were evacuated the fire broke out on tuesday night due to strong winds from Hurricane Dora that spread the fire the cause of the fire on the island has not been identified but the National Weather service misses that dry vegetation most likely caught fire, the flames quickly began to spread across the island, experts note that this summer forest fires have reached an unprecedented scale also in europe and canada, and in general, july has become the hottest month in the entire history of meteoobservations and probably in the entire history of mankind, Scientists Say today also, in the federal court in washington , hearings began in the case regarding the efforts of former President Donald Trump to change the results of the 2020 election, the judge considered the issue regarding the release of information from the case materials by the defense, she stated that the former president has the right to freedom of speech, but this right is not absolute, she also said that the more the party makes inflammatory statements that can influence the jury, the sooner the trial itself will begin to ensure its justice i will remind you that trump pleaded not guilty to four criminal charges related to his attempts to influence the 2020 president ial election, meanwhile us attorney general mary karland appointed prosecutor davidavis as a special adviser in the investigation of the case against the son of the current president of the United States, hunter biden, waltz, the federal prosecutor who investigated the affairs and affairs of ganten and indicted him. Returning to history from ukraine , a fishing enterprise has been operating in khmelnytskyi for more than 100 years. All the time, the fish farm was engaged in growing and selling live fish fish both within the borders of the country and to neighboring moldova and romania this year, a new stage in the life of the economy began, the production of canned the first batch of fish has already been sent to the front line, and as a test, the Ukrainian Military managed to turn the idea into reality. Thanks to cooperation with the Us InternationalDevelopment Agencies , tetyana kukurika and serhiy rybchinsky learned how the americans helped. United States Agency for international development, we approached them, we showed our entire business process , business project, they approved it, that is, they completely, very detailed, they generally approach and study everything in a very professional, detailed manner, i. E. If we showed them some Business Model that is dead or has no right to exist, they would not give us a single penny, this freezer is aimed at 3 tons of products, freezes about 3 tons in 12 hours , america that the agency purchased refrigeration equipment for a fish farm for about one million uah 300,000, the equipment was selected by qualified organizations and additionally checked by specialists from the american company, so we have obligations to them to show in the future that we will grow, we will preserve fish, and we have capacity here , we have contractual relations with them, that is, they continue to follow us, lets say, monitor us, and we are happy to cooperate with them and hope that in the future we together with them, we will implement more than one project, and we hope that they will help us in this, thanks to the help of the americans, even in the midst of the war , the economy will be able to expand production, which orders are very many, the demand is great, and we we work khmelnytskyi farm has more than a hundred years of history of fish breeding, around 1922 the company itself was founded on the basis of capacity on the basis of the farm of count pototsky, which is located today on the modern territory of the village of antonina, the fish farm in permanent use has six and a half thousand hectares of water bodies in the territory of the white carp region grass crucian carp , catfish , pike, well, these are the main ones, as well as the main ones. They tried it on the front lines of the Ukrainian Military, not as part of any help from the ministry of defense, but directly to the front lines, they sent the boys to try it, that is, everyone likes it, in september, when mass production starts , 40 people will work at the fish farm for the community , this is the creation of jobs. This is the salary of the workers, that is, our residents. Personal income tax payment for the production of finished products tetyana kukuriika serhiy rybchynskyi for the voice of america from medzhibozhan , khmelnytskyi download the mobile application the voice of america application allows you to automatically bypass blocking thanks to the builtin vpn service, read the news, watch informative programs and videos, and also listen to podcasts of the Ukrainian Service of the voice of america, we end the program with such an inspiring story about how ukrainians conduct business even in war conditions , we will say goodbye on this thank you for staying with us see also our Daily Briefing programs ee on the 18th where you can ask your question to my colleagues Yuliya Yarmolenko and ostap yarish, peace be upon you good night and a peaceful morning. See you soon. We continue the search for 5yearold yaroslav major, who disappeared in september last year in the thenoccupied territory of kharkiv oblast. I know that at the beginning of this year, yaroslavs grandfather managed to find out that the boy is still alive and even sent us a video of communication with his grandson and how handsome, someone knew me, recognized me, how good are you, the guy was taken to russia, and from there he only once contacted his grandfather, who lives in Kharkiv Region, and now he is doing Everything Possible to find and return his grandson the last time i met my grandson was before the war, because the boy lived with his parents in kharkiv in the first days of the fullscale invasion. The situation there was quite uneasy and the family immediately decided to evacuate. Once you got there, you will see him, there was no opportunity to go. The kupyan district of Kharkiv Region was occupied almost from the beginning so, for about seven months of the war, mr. Serhii could not contact his family in any way, but he believed that everything was fine with them, this was not the case for five years. At that time , he knew that, well, they already understood, but where is the body, like would have happened even under the occupation, they can