US President Joe Biden continues to insist that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky can count on America’s ongoing largesse to reverse his military’s flagging efforts in the war against Russia. In a call between the two men on Saturday, the American President told Zelensky that the country’s next tranche of $60bn in military aid is effectively money in the bank for Ukraine, despite the not-so-small matter that it is currently being blocked by Congressional Republicans.
The White House, in a statement, backed Kyiv’s assertion that last week’s Ukrainian military withdrawal from Avdiivka was due to “dwindling supplies” of ammunition “as a result of Congressional inaction”. President Biden told reporters “the idea now, when they’re running out of ammunition, we’d walk away… I find it absurd”.
But absurdity on Capitol Hill remains the name of the game. Inaction is guaranteed for at least the next fortnight. Congress went into recess for two weeks on Friday, and when the House of Representatives returns on 28 February, it will have only 72 hours to avert the possibility of another government shutdown. The chances of steering funding for Ukraine through that immediate thicket look grim, given the implacable opposition of Trump-backed Republicans to the notion of sending Kyiv another penny.
The President’s optimism, however, is rooted in the numbers. Following the Democrats’ win in a by-election in Long Island last week, Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, can only afford to lose two Republican votes in any legislation that he brings up for consideration.
The Senate passed the $95bn foreign aid package last Tuesday, with 22 Republicans defying Trump and supporting the provision of fresh funding to both Ukraine and Israel. In the House, any vote would be likely to see moderate Republicans uniting with Democrats to carry the measure through.
But therein lies the rub. By the mere act of putting the bill to a vote, Speaker Johnson could be signing his own death warrant. Far-right members of the Republican caucus have the capacity, at any point, to try and oust him, just as they forced Kevin McCarthy from the Speaker’s chair last October, for the cardinal sin of avoiding a government shutdown by relying on Democrat votes.
Johnson’s reaction on Friday to news of Alexei Navalny’s death in Russia was indicative of the hazardous waters he is now navigating. “As Congress debates the best path forward to support Ukraine,” he wrote in a statement, “the United States and our partners must be using every means available to cut off Putin’s ability to fund his unprovoked war.”
Translation: I’m not putting my career on the line for Ukraine at this end of Pennslyvania Avenue, so, Mr. President, it’s over to you.
President Biden can, of course, implement fresh sanctions against the Russians for the Kremlin’s assumed role in Navalny’s demise. But Putin has already survived two years of what the White House routinely describes as the “toughest sanctions” Moscow has ever faced.
If claims that the Kremlin deliberately killed Navalny on Friday are correct, then it appears the Russian leader feels sufficiently confident that he could assassinate Navalny on the eve of the annual Munich Security Conference, despite the possibility he might galvanise American and European action against him.
In Munich, Republican Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio insisted that Navalny’s death would not change the equation on Capitol Hill. Vance, a Trump surrogate, called the Ukrainians “admirable”, but said the United States does not enjoy the “capacity to support a ground war in Eastern Europe indefinitely”.
He pressed Kyiv to prepare to cede territory to Russia in eventual peace negotiations. “Significant territorial concessions from Ukraine,” he said, are “the only real way out of the conflict”. That view will encourage Putin to hope that if Trump wins November’s US election, the next American administration will force Ukraine to agree to its own dismemberment.
Senator Vance said his schedule in Munich was too busy to meet the Ukrainian delegation attending the conference. Back in Kyiv, President Zelensky challenged Trump to join him on a visit to the Ukrainian front lines.
Trump, however, spent his weekend in the less bellicose environment of a sneaker convention in Philadelphia, which Biden won in 2020, flogging his new line of $400 gold high-top trainers to a chorus of ‘boos’ from an audience. Michael Tyler, communications director for the Biden-Harris re-election campaign, said: “Donald Trump showing up to hawk bootleg Off-Whites is the closest he’ll get to any Air Force Ones ever again for the rest of his life.”
