Quick Senate OK ahead for House-passed $40B aid

WASHINGTON » Final congressional approval of a $40 billion Ukraine aid bill seems certain within days as top Senate Republicans said Wednesday they expect strong GOP backing for the House-passed measure, signaling a bipartisan, heightened U.S. commitment to helping thwart the bloody Russian invasion.

“I think there’ll be substantial support,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch Mcconnell, R-KY., told The Associated Press about the legislation, which cleared the House late Tuesday by an emphatic 36857 margin. “We’re going to try to process it as soon as possible.”

No. 2 Senate GOP leader John Thune of South Dakota predicted “a big vote over here” for the bill, which he and others suggested might come today but could spill into next week. Thune said some Republicans would vote against it and procedural tactics by opponents to slow it were possible, but he added, “I don’t think we’ll have anybody who will hold it up.”

It has taken just two weeks for lawmakers to receive President Joe Biden’s smaller, $33 billion package, enlarge it and move it to the brink of passage — lightning speed for Congress. That reflects a bipartisan consensus that Ukraine’s outnumbered forces need additional Western help as soon as possible, with added political pressure fueled by neardaily tales of atrocities against civilians inflicted by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s armies.

“Act quickly we must,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. “I will make sure this is a priority for the Senate. We have a moral obligation to stand with our friends in Ukraine.”

The new legislation would bring American support for the effort to nearly $54 billion, including the $13.6 billion Congress enacted in March. That’s about $6 billion more than the U.S. spent on all its foreign and military aid in 2019, according to a January report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, which studies issues for lawmakers.

Washington has become increasingly assertive about its goals and its willingness to help Ukraine with more sophisticated weapons. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said recently the U.S. wants a “weakened” Russia that can’t quickly restore its capability to attack other countries, and reports have emerged about U.S. intelligence helping Ukrainians kill Russian generals and sink the Russian missile cruiser Moskva.

A senior Russian official said in Moscow on Wednesday that the assistance package was part of Washington’s proxy war against Russia. Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia’s Security Council and former president, said on a messaging app that the aid was driven by a desire to “inflict a heavy defeat on our country (and) restrict its economic development and political influence in the world.”

The measure sailed to House passage backed by every voting Democrat, while approximately one in four Republicans opposed it. It would provide $7 billion more than Biden’s request from April, dividing the increase evenly between defense and humanitarian programs.

The bill would give Ukraine military and economic assistance, help regional allies, replenish weapons the Pentagon has shipped overseas and provide $5 billion to address global food shortages caused by the war’s crippling of Ukraine’s normally robust production of many crops.