US Congress approves invoked Lend-Lease Act to send weapons to Ukraine

The US House of Representatives has overwhelmingly passed a legislation that would allow President Joe Biden to use a World War II-era law to quickly supply weapons to Ukraine and other eastern European countries, on loan. 

Now the bill needs to be signed by Biden to come into play.

“Passage of that act enabled Great Britain and Winston Churchill to keep fighting and to survive the fascist Nazi bombardment until the United States could enter the war,” said Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland. “President Zelensky has said that Ukraine needs weapons to sustain themselves, and President Biden has answered that call.”

The legislation invokes the Lend-Lease Act of 1941, initially  proposed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to help arm British forces battling Germany. 

The legislation allowed the president to lease or lend military equipment to any foreign authorities “whose defense the president deems vital to the defense of the United States.”