Australia to provide Ukraine another $15.5M in aid, impose more sanctions on Russia
The Government of Australia will expand its support to Ukraine and impose further punitive actions on Russia in response to its “unrelenting and illegal aggression” against Ukraine.
These additional measures will help ensure Russia pays a high price for its blatant violation of the UN Charter and its disregard for international humanitarian law, Foreign Minister Marise Payne said in a statement.
The country has developed an additional $21 million support package of defensive military assistance for the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which will bring Australia’s total military assistance so far to $91 million.
To meet Ukrainian priority requests, this package will comprise additional material from Australian Defense Force stocks.
The Australian government will continue to identify opportunities to provide further military assistance where it is able to provide required capability to the Ukraine Armed Forces expeditiously.
It also commits to an additional $30 million in emergency humanitarian assistance. This contribution will focus on protecting women, children, the elderly and the disabled, and takes the total we have so far committed to $65 million.
To help address education and critical protection needs for children, people living with a disability and those facing risks of gender-based violence, Australia will provide $10 million through non-government organizations under the Australian Humanitarian Partnership.
Another $8 million will be provided to the United Nations Population Fund to protect displaced women and girls from gender-based violence and ensure access to sexual and reproductive health services.
To help address increasingly severe food shortages, Australia will also contribute $10 million to the World Food Programme.
And to enhance the response of Australian NGOs and their partners in the region, the government will provide $2 million to the Emergency Action Alliance Ukraine Appeal – funding which will attract matched private donations.
Australia will also continue to impose high costs on Russia. It has so far imposed a total of 476 sanctions on 443 individuals, including many oligarchs close to President Putin, and 33 entities, including most of Russia’s banking sector and all entities responsible for Russia’s sovereign debt.
Now the government has imposed an “immediate ban on Australian exports of alumina and aluminium ores (including bauxite) to Russia, which will limit its capacity to produce aluminium – a critical export for Russia.”
“Aluminium is a global input across the auto, aerospace, packaging, machinery and construction sectors, and a critical input into armaments industries,” the statement reads.