The assistance will include financing for military and border guards, and will come on top of $70 million in US security aid previously announced during Kiev's showdown with the Kremlin over Crimea and regions in eastern Ukraine.
The announcement came shortly after Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko delivered an impassioned appeal before Congress calling for greater US political and military support in the battle against pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine.
"Please understand me correctly. Blankets, night-vision goggles are also important. But one cannot win the war with blankets," he said. "Even more, we cannot keep the peace with a blanket."
Drawing cheers from those lawmakers who want to arm the former Soviet state, Poroshenko declared his forces "need more military equipment, both lethal and non-lethal, urgently need."
He said Russia had put world security in peril, condemning Russia's annexation of Crimea as "one of the most cynical acts of treachery in modern history".
"With just one move, the world has been thrown back in time — to a reality of territorial claims, zones of influence, criminal aggression and annexations," he said. "The postwar international system of checks and balances was effectively ruined."
The leader portrayed Europe's - and the world's - next steps as a "choice between civilization and barbarism."
And while he warned of the potential for a new Cold War, he insisted there was a genuine chance for peace in the near term.
"I am convinced that the people of Ukraine and the people of Russia have enough goodwill to give peace one last chance and prevail against the spirit of hate," he said.
"Despite the insanity of this war, I am convinced that peace can be achieved - sooner rather than later."
Obama condemns Russian 'aggression'
After meeting with Poroshenko in the Oval Office, Obama condemned what he called Russian "aggression" in Ukraine.
"Unfortunately, what we have also seen is Russian aggression, first in Crimea and most recently in portions of eastern Ukraine."
Obama said Russia's moves had violated Ukraine's sovereignty and were also designed to undermine Poroshenko's reform efforts.
He also praised the Ukrainian leader on Thursday for his "difficult" move to offer limited self-rule to parts of his war-torn country's separatist east as part of a peace plan reached with Moscow.
Ukraine accuses Russia of massing troops on border
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian government has accused Russia of massing around 4,000 troops on the border of Russian-annexed Crimea and Ukraine.
It comes as multiple Crimean residents also reported seeing troop movements.
"According to our information, almost all military units of the Russian Federation stationed in the north of occupied Crimea... were pushed to the administrative border with Ukraine along with all their equipment and ammunition," said National Security and Defence Council spokesman Andriy Lysenko.
He said the units, totalling about 4,000 troops, were deployed in "small tactical groups" along the border in Crimea, the Ukrainian Black Sea peninsula that Russia annexed in March.
Ukraine's border service said Thursday that Russia was also using drones for air reconnaissance, with border guards reporting three cases of the use of drones in the last 24 hours, one near Mariupol in eastern Ukraine, and two on the Crimean border.
Crimea residents, who asked for their surnames not to be published, told AFP they had noticed recent Russian troop movements going towards the border.
"Tanks and some types of artillery were clearly seen moving on open railway cars through the station of Krasnoperekopsk towards Ukraine. I saw them myself," Sanie, a resident of the town of Krasnoperekopsk close to the border, told AFP.
She said that her friends in the village of Ishun, close to the highway that crosses the border, had also called her last week to say that "military hardware was going past all the time... about 20 at a time."
Russia's Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said earlier this week that Moscow planned to boost troop numbers in Crimea because of what he described as a deteriorating situation in Ukraine and a buildup of foreign troops near its border.
Russia is deeply concerned at NATO's move eastwards and President Vladimir Putin has accused the West of provoking the crisis in Ukraine in order to "revive" the military bloc.
-with agencies
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