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There is growing concern among the White House and pro-Ukrainian lawmakers over the future of US funding to Kiev after the ouster of Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House of Representatives, leaving military aid in limbo.
The threat of a default on US aid to Ukraine within a few months – a worst-case scenario for the Biden administration, which until now seemed impossible – has increased in the past few days as chaos has spread within the Republican Party in Congress.
It has also triggered introspection on the impact of US political dysfunction on the administration’s foreign policy goals in Washington, as it tries to build a global coalition to counter Russian aggression and growing threats from China.
“Will we appease Putin and cut off aid to Ukrainians? If we do that, that will be our problem,” Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a speech on the Senate floor this week.
“It’s heartbreaking to see that we cannot put the country’s national security above partisanship here in Washington,” said Heather Conley, president of the German Marshall Fund in America.
Concerns are heightened by the fact that Jim Jordan – one of the two leading candidates to replace McCarthy as speaker, who has the backing of former President Donald Trump – is openly skeptical of aid to Ukraine, even Don’t be hostile towards it. Steve Scalise, another top contender for speakership, has supported funding to Ukraine in the past. But if he wins, it is unclear whether he will defy the right wing of the party by voting to increase aid to Kiev.
“Jim Jordan is a real candidate to take over the House Speakership and he voted against Ukraine funding. So if it were me I would be worried [Volodymyr] Zelensky and his team are watching US domestic politics from a distance,” said Rachel Rizzo, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center, referring to the Ukrainian president.
Concerns over the future of Ukraine’s funding grew when it was removed from law last Saturday to avert a government shutdown until at least mid-November. President Joe Biden has sought to reassure U.S. supporters of Ukraine and allies around the world that it will eventually be cleared.
Once McCarthy was removed from his post by a small group of Republican insurgents and all House Democrats, however, it was hard for the White House to stay upbeat.
“Time is not our friend. John Kirby, coordinator of strategic communications at the National Security Council, told reporters, “We have enough funding authority to meet Ukraine’s battlefield needs for quite some time, but we need Congress to take action to ensure that There should be no interruption in our support. ,
Biden noted that a majority of members of both parties in the House and Senate say they support continued funding for Ukraine. But he acknowledged he needed to make a more convincing defense of American support to the American public.
He said, “I am going to announce a major speech soon on this issue and explain why it is important for the United States and our allies that we keep our commitment.”
After this the US President called a meeting of his top national security team to discuss Ukraine.
Biden faces growing pressure, particularly from Republicans in Congress who support aid to Ukraine, to give a more definitive explanation of US strategy in the war to help maintain public support.
Jim Risch and Michael McCaul, the top Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said, “Your administration has failed to explain how U.S. aid to Ukraine will help them win over Russia, while also prioritizing American interests and further Will increase.” The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee wrote a letter to Biden on Friday.
“A pledge to support Ukraine ‘as long as possible’ is not a strategy,” he said.
“The administration has not sent a strong message to Congress or the American people. “Now aid to Ukraine has become a power issue in Congress,” said Heather Nauert, a former State Department spokeswoman under Trump and now a spokeswoman at BGR, a lobbying group in Washington.
The consequences of a possible reduction or omission in funding for Ukraine’s war effort are grave.
“This could not come at a more difficult time, as Ukraine’s counteroffensive is at its most difficult moment. This is exactly the time when we need to give Ukraine all the necessary tools to get this done as quickly as possible,” Conley said.
Raphael Cohen of the RAND Corporation said this could be a key moment in the historical debate over whether or not the US “played this war right” and whether it should have provided aid more quickly than it did.
“If help ends it there will be an argument [the US strategy] Cohen said it “contributed to blunting the battlefield results” and failed to take into account “the diminishing window of public support.”