Ukraine: U.S. lawmakers
look to lock in a further $50 billion assistance
package
By Dan De Luce, Julie
Tsirkin and Scott Wong
October 22, 2022:
Information Clearing House
-- "NBC"
- Amid concerns that a new Congress
could take a more skeptical view of aid to
Ukraine, lawmakers from both parties are looking
to lock in billions of dollars in
military assistance to Kyiv before newly
elected members are sworn in in January,
according to a lawmaker and congressional
staffers.
House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy of
California, who is poised to take over as
speaker if the GOP wins a majority in the House
in the November midterm elections, warned this
week that his fellow party members are “not
going to write a blank check to Ukraine.”
With that threat to
Ukraine aid looming, the bipartisan idea
under consideration would use a government
funding bill during the lame-duck session after
the midterms to secure a much higher level of
military and other assistance than prior aid
packages for Ukraine, according to the lawmaker
and the aides.
Congress last month approved $12 billion in
military and economic aid to
Ukraine, but the package being contemplated
would be dramatically larger, the sources said.
The amount would be enough “to make sure
[Ukraine] can get through the year,” a
Republican senator with knowledge of the matter
told NBC News. “It’ll make the $12 billion look
like pocket change.”
The new aid package, which most likely would
be part of an omnibus spending bill, could be
within the range of roughly $50 billion,
congressional aides and a source close to the
Ukraine government said. The Biden
administration has not yet made a formal request
for new funding.
Congress has allocated a total of $65 billion
in funding to Ukraine since Russia attacked the
country in February.
‘Put your own oxygen mask on’
Many Republican candidates endorsed by former
President Donald Trump have questioned the
amount of U.S. aid delivered to Ukraine to help
it fend off Russian forces, which invaded the
country in February. They argue that the U.S.
has more pressing domestic problems, that
Ukraine’s fate is not tied to U.S. national
interests and that European allies should be
delivering a larger share of the weapons and
other assistance to Kyiv.
On Thursday evening, President Joe Biden said
of Republicans, “They said that if they win
they’re not likely to fund, to continue to fund
Ukraine.”
“These guys don’t get it. It’s a lot bigger
than Ukraine. It’s Eastern Europe. It’s NATO.
It’s really serious, serious consequential
outcomes.”
House conservatives argue America needs to
shore up its southern border and address the
illegal immigration before worrying about
Ukraine’s border with Russia.
“My constituents are saying, ‘Why are we more
worried about Ukraine’s borders than we are
about America’s borders?’ My constituents are
not sitting there going, ‘Gosh, we have to save
Ukraine’s borders,’” Rep. Warren Davidson,
R-Ohio, a member of the conservative
Trump-aligned Freedom Caucus, said in an
interview.
Like Davidson, conservative Rep. Kat Cammack,
R-Fla., said her heart breaks for the Ukrainian
people, but she has not voted for recent Ukraine
aid packages and isn’t inclined to do so next
year if Republicans take control of the House,
as most polls predict.
“I liken it to the airline videos they do
before you take off: You need to put your own
oxygen mask on before helping others,” Cammack,
a member of the Homeland Security Committee,
told NBC News. “And I just don’t think as a
legislator that I could, in good conscience,
support billions and billions of funding going
overseas when we have such dire needs here.”
But some other Republicans in and outside of
Congress disagree, reflecting deep divisions in
the party over Ukraine and foreign policy more
generally.
Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, R-Tenn., a member of
the powerful Appropriations Committee that
controls spending, said providing weapons and
other assistance to Ukraine is crucial to
halting Russia’s unprovoked invasion.
“I voted for the first funding bill, and I
would be open to discussing more funding,”
Fleischmann said. “If we do not take the
necessary steps for Ukraine to protect its
nation and sovereignty against Russia, I think
the ripple effects will end up costing not only
the United States but the world a lot more.”
Former Vice President Mike Pence, speaking at
a Heritage Foundation event on Wednesday,
castigated Republicans who opposed backing
Ukraine as “apologists” for Russian President
Vladimir Putin.
“As Russia continues its unconscionable war
of aggression to Ukraine, I believe that
conservatives must make it clear that Putin must
stop and Putin will pay,” Pence said. “There can
be no room in the conservative movement for
apologists to Putin. There is only room in this
movement for champions of freedom.”
The Republican House leadership has “every
incentive” to see a large aid package passed now
while Democrats hold the majority, so that they
do not have to face a divisive, internal debate
over the issue if the GOP wins back control of
the House, according to Daniel Vajdich, an
adviser to Ukraine's state-owned energy industry
and president of Yorktown Solutions, a
Washington lobbying firm.
“They don’t want to deal with it next year,”
said Vajdich, a former Republican congressional
staffer.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South
Carolina, a staunch supporter of military aid to
Ukraine, said last month that he had discussed
the issue with McCarthy and that he agreed other
countries need to do more to assist Ukraine. But
he predicted Ukraine would continue to receive
the support it needed.
“I think you can expect Republicans to ask
others to do more,” Graham said, referring to
America’s NATO partners. “In the House majority,
which I think is likely, I am confident that the
speaker and most members of the conference in
the House on the Republican side understand that
the outcome in Ukraine directly impacts our
national security.”
But Ukraine, Eastern European governments and
Kyiv’s supporters in Congress on both sides of
the aisle are worried that a larger contingent
of pro-Trump, isolationist-minded lawmakers in
Congress could jeopardize the flow of weapons,
ammunition and economic aid that has enabled
Ukraine to gain ground against Russian troops in
recent months.
“We are incredibly concerned that the MAGA
wing of the party is planning to block
life-saving aid to Ukraine if Republicans take
over the House,” said one Democratic
congressional aide.
“We are going to have to get creative in the
coming months to front load as much aid to
Ukraine as possible, given that we may again
find ourselves in the calamitous position where
Putin’s interests are once again aligned with
that of Trump and his followers.”
Ukraine relies heavily on outside funding and
arms deliveries to keep up its war effort
against Russia. If U.S. aid were to dry up,
Ukraine could eventually see a shortage of
artillery ammunition, as it burns through
thousands of artillery rounds a day, according
to defense officials and military analysts. With
Russian stepping up drone attacks on its
electricity grid and other targets, Ukraine also
is depleting its supply of S-300 anti-aircraft
missiles and other air defense systems as it
tries to counter the aerial assault.
Asked about concerns that congressional
support for aid to Ukraine could be at risk,
State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant
Patel said Biden and Secretary of State Antony
Blinken “have been very clear that our
commitment to our Ukrainian partners is not just
unwavering, but it is ironclad. And we’re going
to continue to take steps to do what we can to
ensure that Ukraine has what it needs to defend
itself, to defend its territorial integrity and
to put it in the best position possible at a
potential negotiating table whenever that might
be.”
Views expressed in this article are
solely those of the author and do not necessarily
reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
in this article are
solely those of the author and do not necessarily
reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
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