US Sec of State Promises Additional $368m Humanitarian Aid for Ukraine

American Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, who was in Asia this week for the G20 summit followed by an unscheduled stop-over in Japan to pay his respects to the assassinated former Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, indicated that the US would allocate an additional $368 million to help Ukrainian refugees. Blinken wrote on Twitter that, “Our commitment to the people of Ukraine is resolute. The United States is providing nearly $368 million in additional humanitarian aid to support people inside Ukraine and refugees forced to flee their country to seek safety in the midst of Russia’s brutal war.”

According to statistics maintained by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), more than 8.72 million border crossings into Europe have been reported from Ukraine, a country with a pre-war population of roughly 40 million. At present, the UNHCR’s portal indicates that there are 5.56 million Ukrainian refugees in Europe provoking the current crisis for European leaders searching for ways to accommodate the rapid intake of refugees.

Despite its strong financial and military support for Ukraine, Washington had earlier faced criticism from some quarters for not taking a more “hands-on approach” to Ukrainian refugees by allowing them to move to the US. At the time, numerous stories of Ukrainian refugees arriving at the Mexico-US border with hopes that a lenient American border guard would allow them to pass per “humanitarian parole,” a category that allows a foreigner to stay in the US for up to one year.

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Since that time, in April, the State Department has announced a new program “Uniting for Ukraine,” which allows Americans to sponsor Ukrainians to enter the United States. The program, being managed by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), seeks to allow refugees to receive “humanitarian parole” approval before coming to the United States.