What’s the Future of US Assistance for Ukraine?
© AFP 2023 / MANDEL NGAN
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The US barely avoided a government shutdown after President Joe Biden signed a short-term funding bill on Saturday night, which notably excludes funds for Ukraine, an issue that remains to be a bone of contention between Democrats and Republicans. So what lies ahead for Washington’s assistance for Kiev? Sputnik explores.
Upcoming House Vote on Ukraine Funds
According to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, lawmakers “will work on the issue” of US aid to Ukraine during a vote later on Monday, when the US lower chamber is due to reconvene.
The upcoming session will come after the House and Senate agreed on Saturday on a stopgap short-term funding bill to prevent a shutdown and keep government funded for 45 days, a document that was then hastily signed into law by US President Joe Biden.
In the House, 209 Democrats and 126 Republicans voted “yes,” while 90 GOP members said “no” to the bill, which was then smoothly cleared in the Senate. Nine Republican senators, however, signaled their opposition to the document, which remarkably included no US assistance to Ukraine.
It’s worth noting in this vein that Washington’s aid to the Kiev regime has already soared to a whopping total of $78.8 billion since the beginning of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine.
Angry POTUS Wants Congress to Get to Work
Biden has, meanwhile urged House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to decide on funding for Ukraine after Congress okayed a last-minute stopgap bill, in a move that came less than a couple of weeks after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to Washington, in which he called on Kiev’s allies to go ahead with full-blown support for Ukraine.
“We cannot under any circumstances allow American support for Ukraine to be interrupted. I fully expect the Speaker will keep his commitment to the people of Ukraine and secure passage of the support needed to help Ukraine at this critical moment,” POTUS said in a statement.
US Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California, speaks to the press on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on September 30, 2023.
© AFP 2023 / ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS
According to the 46th president, he is "sick and tired" of “the brinkmanship” pertaining to the US funding for Kiev.
"Enough is enough. This is not that complicated. The brinksmanship has to end and there shouldn't be another crisis. Stop the games. Get to work," Biden added.
Congress Lawmakers at Loggerheads
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of the Democratic Party and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell vowed to move swiftly, in sync with Biden’s call.
An influential US magazine noted in this context, “It was clear that the goal will be increasingly difficult as more rank-and-file GOP senators have questioned the [Kiev] aid or demanded that it be attached to immigration policy that would help secure the southern border — echoing similar demands in the House.”
As if to underscore the comment, Florida GOP Senator Rick Scott said that Congress needs to have “a conversation with the American public,” adding, “In my state, people want to be helpful to Ukraine, but they also want to be helpful to Americans. And so they want to really understand how this money has been spent.”
Schumer, for his part, claimed that “Majorities in both parties support Ukraine aid,” pledging that they won’t “stop fighting for more economic and security assistance for Ukraine.”
He spoke as Republican Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Mike Rogers admitted that he is ready to signal lawmakers’ readiness to support Ukraine by passing a new bill, but that he believes the Pentagon has “enough draw-down money” to last through December.
“I think the speaker has always had a good position on Ukraine. I think he's dealing with a caucus that's got fractures that he has to deal with and none of them can be ignored when you've got a four-seat majority and 15 nuts in the conference,” Rogers noted, referencing an array of lawmakers who have staunchly opposed the Ukraine funding.
The remarks came as US Department of Defense (DoD)’s senior officials expressed concern over the bill with no extra funding for Ukraine. In a letter to congressional leaders, Under Secretary of Defense Michael McCord made it clear that the Pentagon had exhausted almost all the available security assistance.
“Without additional funding now, we would have to delay or curtail assistance to meet Ukraine’s urgent requirements, including for air defense and ammunition that are critical and urgent now as Russia prepares to conduct a winter offensive,” McCord said.
This was preceded by Republican Matt Gaetz last week calling for an amendment to the defense funding bill to ban all military assistance to Ukraine. The amendment won 93 Republican votes, while 126 GOP members and all 213 Democrats voted against it. Just for comparison, only 70 Republicans said “yes” to Gaetz’s initiative in July. A separate amendment by Republican Andy Biggs to reduce $300 million in arms assistance for Ukraine also crashed in the House last week, even though the move gained 104 GOP votes against 117 Republicans and 213 Democrats who said “no” to the measure.
McCarthy in Hot Water
In a separate development that one US news outlet noted “could roil the House,” Gaetz, who is McCarthy’s long-term critic, said that he was considering a vote to oust the speaker over the stopgap funding bill. McCarthy resorted to negotiating the document with Democrats after struggling to rally the necessary votes from his fellow Republicans.
"The one thing Democrats, Republicans, the White House, that we all have in common is that Kevin McCarthy, at one point or another, has lied to all of us," Gaetz recently told an American broadcaster.
In an interview with another US news channel, Gaetz urged House Republicans “to rip off the Bandaid.” He added that the GOP members “need to move on with new leadership that can be trustworthy,” and that he plans to file a “motion to vacate” in the next few days.
US Representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL) speaks to the press outside the US Capitol after voting in the House in Washington, DC on September 29, 2023.
© AFP 2023 / ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS
Gaetz claimed that McCarthy lied about “a secret deal” clinched with Democrats to later pass money for Kiev that was left out of the compromise agreement, and that he misled Republicans about working with the opposition at all.
The House speaker was quick to hit back at Gaetz, slamming him as a showman “more interested in securing TV interviews” than keeping the government functioning.
“I’ll survive. You know, this is personal with Matt. He wanted to push us into a shutdown, even threatening his own district with all the military people there who would not be paid. […] So be it. Bring it on. Let’s get it over with it, and let’s start governing. If he’s upset because he tried to push us into shutdown and I made sure the government didn’t shut down, then let’s have that fight,” McCarthy said.
With the House speaker reportedly in need of obtaining at least 218 votes to keep his job in case of the vote, some senior Democrats have already signaled that they would not save him and would instead support Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader.
Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, in turn, called McCarthy a “very weak speaker,” making it clear that she would support Gaetz’s motion.
McCarthy “has clearly lost control of his caucus. He has brought the US and millions of Americans to the brink, waiting until the final hour to keep the government open and even then only issuing a 47-day extension. We’re going to be right back in this place in November.”
Expiration of Ukraine-Related Lend-Lease Act
In the meantime, the US Congress’ so-called Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act expired on September 30, a document lawmakers notably have never used.
In May 2022, President Biden signed the act to facilitate the supply of materiel to Ukraine, in what American media said was an attempt to “revive the process previously used by the US to support the Allies during World War II without technically entering the conflict.”
A year later, however, one US media outlet pointed out that the Biden administration “has chosen not to use that [Land-Lease Act] option, mainly because the congressionally approved pot of money that hasn’t been zeroed out yet.”
The outlet cited an unnamed White House official as saying at the time (in an apparent nod to the Kiev regime) that “We are prioritizing security assistance that they would not have to pay us back for.” The official added without elaborating that although Washington is “certainly open to using it [the Act] in the future, the focus right now is on “other existing authorities that Congress has authorized.”
According to the outlet, “another reason for keeping Lend-Lease in the back pocket could be because there’s currently bipartisan support for sending weapons to Ukraine.”
Some lawmakers have repeatedly expressed frustration over the situation, with Senator John Cornyn, in turn, saying that, “As our defense stockpiles dwindle, it’s absurd for the Biden administration to sit on its hands and ignore the Lend-Lease authority from Congress.” Using Lend-Lease is “a much better plan than continuing to give them [the Zelensky regime] away for free,” Cornyn emphasized.
It remains to add that of the current $76.8 billion of US funding to Kiev, more than $23 billion was allocated for military assistance, something that Russia warns will further prolong the Ukraine conflict.
