Of the total spending package, about $23 billion will be used to replenish U.S. military stockpiles. Another $14 billion will go to the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative where the Pentagon purchases new weapons systems for the Ukrainian military directly from U.S. defense contractors. And $11 billion will fund current U.S. military operations in the region, while $8 billion is allocated for non-military assistance, including paying salaries and pensions for Ukraine’s government. “Westerners are dangerously balancing on the brink of a direct military clash between nuclear powers, which is fraught with catastrophic consequences,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in a video message to the participants of the Moscow Nonproliferation Conference. "Of particular concern is the fact that it is the 'troika' of Western nuclear states that are among the key sponsors of the criminal Kyiv regime, the main initiators of various provocative steps. We see serious strategic risks in this, leading to an increase in the level of nuclear danger,” he added. The funding bill now heads to the Senate, which has a Democrat-majority and is expected to approve the legislation this week. “The most controversial of the bill’s provisions concerns the seizure of frozen Russian assets,” according to Russian state news agency TASS. Around $4 to $5 billion will be provided to Ukraine in loans, which Jim Jatras, an ex-foreign policy adviser to Republican Senate leadership, says is “an attempt to cloak the illegitimate seizure of Russian assets in some semblance of legality,” TASS reported. TASS quoted Professor Richard Bensel of New York’s Cornell University as saying that the legislation’s key goal is not to seize Russian assets in the U.S., but to inspire European nations to take Russian assets frozen in Europe. "The allocation of military assistance by the United States to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan will aggravate the global crisis," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said in a post to messaging app Telegram. Russia and the U.S. hold roughly 89 percent of all nuclear weapons in the world, and 86 percent of stockpiled warheads available to the military. Lavrov said that given the current commitment to more financial assistance to Ukraine, there is no basis for dialogue with Washington over arms control.Russian officials have issued fresh warnings of kinetic conflict between nuclear powers after the U.S. House of Representatives passed a $61 billion foreign aid package for Ukraine over the weekend.
