Ukraine aid back on US agenda – but still at mercy of unruly Republicans
With the government funding fight resolved, the US House of Representatives is expected to soon turn to a long-stalled national security package that would send military assistance to Ukraine, as well as Israel and other US allies.
Despite increasingly desperate pleas from Kyiv, the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, had refused to bring the wartime aid bill to the floor until Congress finalized a government funding bill, which it did early on Saturday morning – before leaving Washington for a two-week recess.
The bill already passed in the Senate, and support for Ukraine is broadly popular in the House, too, but a faction of hard-right lawmakers opposes sending additional aid to the country. Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, has put pressure on Johnson not to bring the measure to the floor for a vote.
Congressman Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican and chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee who supports arming Ukraine, told CBS News on Sunday that Johnson was committed to holding a vote on the measure when Congress returns after the Easter holiday.
But doing so would infuriate Trump’s far-right allies on Capitol Hill who are already angry with Johnson and threatening a revolt that could end his speakership.
“He is in a very difficult spot,” McCaul said.
The Senate aid bill includes about $60bn for Ukraine as it defends itself from the Russian invasion that began nearly two years ago. But Johnson has assailed the measure and suggested the
House would consider alternative ways of sending aid.
Johnson has expressed interest in an idea floated by Trump that would send Ukraine aid in the form of a nointerest loan, which the speaker called a “commonsense suggestion”. The idea has gained traction in Washington, with the Republican senator Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally, proposing it to the Ukraine president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, when they met in Ukraine last week.
“During my meeting with President Zelenskiy, I informed him that given the crisis at the United States’ southern border and our overwhelming debt, President Trump’s idea of turning aid from the United States into a no-interest, waivable loan is the most likely path forward,” Graham said in a statement. Ukraine aid has sharply divided congressional Republicans, who were once united in toeing a hard line against Russia. But Trump’s hostility to the Nato military alliance and his flattery of Vladimir Putin have helped turn support for Ukraine into a partisan issue unpopular with his base.
In the absence of congressional action, Washington is reportedly lobbying allies in the G7 to issue $50bn of bonds “backed by the profits generated by frozen Russian sovereign assets” to support Ukraine, Bloomberg News reported last week.
The White House first requested fresh funds for Ukraine in October, but the proposal was immediately consumed by the fierce debate over migration at the US’s southern border with
Mexico. When an attempt to address the border issue collapsed earlier this year, the Democratic-controlled Senate moved forward with a vote on the foreign aid package in February.
US and Ukrainian officials have issued grim warnings about what could befall Ukraine on the battlefield if Washington fails to send more military aid. Zelenskiy has stressed his country’s dire need of air defense missiles, as Russia continues its deadly bombardment. Ukrainian troops are rationing artillery shells amid ammunition shortages.
Russian military advances, including its capture of the eastern city of Avdiivka last month, and the death of the Putin foe Alexei Navalny in a Russian penal colony, have added urgency to the debate in Washington.
Earlier this month the Biden administration announced a stopgap plan to send up to $300m worth of weapons to the country, a fraction of the $60bn in the aid bill.
Pushing forward with Ukraine aid is a risk for Johnson, who is already facing backlash from rightwing members who are furious he passed the funding bill with more support from Democrats than Republicans. The farright congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene on Friday filed a resolution to remove Johnson from the speakership, a similar tactic used to depose the former speaker Kevin McCarthy last year.
Rather than force it to be taken up, Greene, who has threatened for months to try to oust Johnson if he were to push forward with a Ukraine funding package, said the resolution was intended as a “warning”.
In a statement following Friday’s vote, Johnson said the House would “take the necessary steps” to consider Ukraine funding but did not give a timetable. Several House Democrats have said they would intervene to save Johnson if the hard-right wing of his caucus moves to remove him over Ukraine funding, but they could also make demands in exchange for their votes.
In a Sunday interview on CNN’s State of the Union, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, said she was “not inclined” to vote to save Johnson but acknowledged that her colleagues were open to it.