Biden in Brussels: U.S. to accept 100,000 Ukrainian refugees

As Western leaders meet in Brussels to discuss the war in Eastern Europe, the Biden administration announced on Thursday that the United States will accept 100,000 Ukrainian refugees and provide Kyiv with more than $1 billion in new humanitarian aid.

More than 3.5 million people have fled their homes since Russian President Vladimir Putin first ordered the illegal invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24. Ukraine’s Eastern European neighbors have been quick to open their borders to millions of fleeing refugees, and Washington has said that it will take steps to help alleviate the migrant crisis, Reuters reported.

On Thursday, officials reiterated that the administration would take steps to speed up visa processing for Ukrainian relatives of U.S. citizens and residents and increase staff to process humanitarian applications – which allow people to enter the country on an emergency basis without a visa through a process known as “humanitarian parole.”

Addressing Poland’s call for “fair burden sharing,” the U.S. also announced that it would allocate billions of dollars in economic aid to Ukrainian refugees and the nations hosting them. It will also provide more than $11 billion over the next five years to alleviate food shortages caused by the war and $320 million to strengthen democratic and human rights in Ukraine and other neighboring countries.

But as Ukraine enters the second month since Russia invaded, President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the NATO summit via video link and urged Western leaders to also provide Ukraine with “1% of all your planes, 1% of all your tanks.”

“When we will have all this, it will give us, just like you, 100% security," he said.

On the eve of the Western summit in Brussels, Zelensky called on his countrymen across the world to take to the streets to support Ukraine as it fought off Russia’s bloody invading force.

“Come to your squares, your streets. Make yourselves visible and heard,” Zelenskyy said in English during an emotional video address late Wednesday that was recorded in the dark near the presidential offices in Kyiv. “Say that people matter. Freedom matters. Peace matters. Ukraine matters.”