A seemingly small step, a mere formality, for the US House of Representatives, but a giant leap for aid to Ukraine in the war. After months of delays and votes against, congressmen have authorized voting this Saturday in the plenary session – where it will surely be approved – a bill that allocates 60,000 million dollars (about 56,000 million euros) for military and economic assistance to the country invaded by Russia. The step is the result of an unusual alliance between moderate Republicans and Democrats to defeat the blockade of the group of ultra-conservative Republicans, staunchly opposed to allocating a single more dollar to kyiv.
In a very unusual situation, more legislators from the Democratic minority, 165, voted in favor of the authorization than from the Republican majority proposing the measure, 151. The final result was 316 votes in favor and 94 against to rule on the measure. four bills: on aid to Ukraine, aid to Israel, assistance to allies in the Indo-Pacific and a fourth on US national security measures, a mixed bag that includes everything from a ban on TikTok if its Chinese parent company does not put for sale the application for an authorization to seize Russian assets.
Once these four measures are put to a vote, they are guaranteed to move forward, having the support of the entire Democratic caucus and the vast majority of Republicans. This alliance has unleashed the fury of the ultra-conservative group, which threatens to unleash an internal process to remove the president of the House, his party colleague Mike Johnson – the promoter of these bills – for being “soft”, as they already did in October with his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy.
Everything in this process has developed in an unusual way, since in September the White House presented what until then had been a mere procedure in Congress: a request for extraordinary funds, contained in a budget bill, to continue aid. military and economic to Ukraine and allow Kiev to repel the large-scale Russian invasion launched in February 2022. The request was met with opposition from Republicans, skeptical about the transparency in the management of funds, the duration and prospects of the war and who believed that this money should be allocated to other priorities within the United States. These objections were soon joined by the demand that, before worrying about Ukraine, the immigration issue had to be resolved, given the record flood of asylum requests on the southern border.
For months, the request for funds, now included in a national security bill of more than 100 billion dollars that also included 14 billion for Israel, and various items for Taiwan and Asian allies, as well as to reinforce security in the southern border, languished in the halls of the Capitol. Democrats and Republicans negotiated for weeks a complex agreement that combined aid to kyiv with immigration reform. The White House urged yes, and recalled that most of these funds are invested in American arms companies. Meanwhile, increasingly urgent appeals came from Ukraine, and worse and worse news from the front about the availability of weapons and how to confront emboldened Russian forces.
Trump’s torpedo
Join EL PAÍS to follow all the news and read without limits.
Subscribe
But when the two parties were claiming victory over a reform agreement in January, the Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, spoke out against it with a verbal torpedo of his own: the measure was — according to him — “horrible.” In a matter of days, and in a spectacular change of political direction, his entire party thought the same. Return to the starting box.
In February the measure, without the border provisions, and reduced to $95 billion, was finally approved in the Senate, where Democrats have a majority. In the House, the speaker Mike Johnson, who had replaced McCarthy in October with ultra-conservative votes, dragged his feet. There was no chance that the bill, as it came from the Senate, could receive a yes from its chamber: in a highly polarized political climate and in which collaboration between parties is almost taboo, and with a party Republican who counts his majority over the Democrats on the fingers of one hand, every hardline vote is necessary. A hard wing that also controls the rules committee, the body that must give final authorization to transfer any bill to the plenary session.
Johnson, in the wing of the “Ukrainian-skeptic” Republicans, argued that priority should be given to voting on this year’s budget laws. Once these were approved, he argued that the renewal of FISA should be undertaken, the law that authorizes surveillance measures for counterespionage without the need for judicial authorization and that the House passed at the beginning of this month.
But two weeks ago, the intelligence services offered a series of classified briefings to MPs on the war situation in Ukraine. What they said, as several attending legislators have pointed out, was devastating. Without help now, kyiv could well lose the war sooner rather than later, with serious consequences for the United States.
More air defense for kyiv
The situation in Ukraine is worse than complicated. Russia is launching missiles and drones against civil and energy infrastructure. Civilian casualties have increased and there are cities, such as Kharkiv, in the east of the country, practically in darkness. NATO allies have promised this Friday to send more air defense to the country invaded by Russia, following the claims of President Volodymyr Zelensky and the requests of the EU and NATO, which in recent days have urged their members to review their arsenals. The Secretary General of the Atlantic Alliance, Jens Stoltenberg, assured this Friday that the allies have identified more Patriot and SAMP/T air defense systems available. “I expect announcements in the near future,” Stoltenberg assured after an urgent meeting with the defense ministers of the 32 NATO allies by videoconference, in which Zelensky also participated.
The Secretary General of the Alliance has reiterated that it is now a priority to send material to Ukraine, even at the cost of not meeting the minimum quantities established by NATO for allied arsenals – something that ceased to prevail a long time ago due to the war launched by Russia and to support Kiev. However, he has not given details of who will send more air defense and when. The allies are finishing closing their commitments, he has said, reports Maria R. Sahuquillo.
Ukraine has ordered seven Patriot defense systems to try to create an anti-missile shield to repel Russian attacks. Germany announced this week that it will send one of the ones it has and that it will add to the two it had already delivered. In addition, there are countries such as Spain, Greece or the Netherlands that also have Patriot – in the case of Spain, one of its batteries is stationed in Turkey as part of a NATO mission – and other countries, such as France, have other systems. In addition, there are allies who have committed to sending funds to purchase air defense elements or spare parts, although this means that the material may take time to arrive. Meanwhile, the Czech Republic has already purchased half a million artillery rounds as part of an initiative to obtain one million from countries outside the EU to send to Ukraine, as confirmed by NATO.
Iran’s attack on Israel, in which US aircraft played an important role in protecting the allied country from Tehran’s drones and missiles, completed the arguments. Last weekend, Johnson announced that this week he would present the aid package to a vote in the House.
To attract the largest possible number of moderate skeptics, and bypass the ultraconservatives, the speaker, a man who likes to examine any problem from all possible angles, proposed splitting the funding package: instead of one bill, four different ones. The Ukrainian one has incorporated measures for stricter supervision, to make it more tolerable among its bench.
“I would rather send bullets to Ukraine than have to send American soldiers to them,” Johnson argued to explain his new stance in favor of aid.
However, the proposal of the president of the Chamber did not have enough votes among his parliamentary group. And among the hardline, livid by Johnson’s maneuver, criticism against the leader of the bench was breaking out and a proposal to force his dismissal was gaining strength.
But what was already beginning to seem like a thing of the past happened: a bipartisan agreement. Democrats, with an extreme interest in moving forward with the funds, teamed with Johnson to vote in favor of the four bills. It was the first time that an alliance of this type had occurred, between Democrats and a conservative Republican, in Johnson’s six months in office.
In Saturday’s vote, Johnson will again require the support of Democrats. In this Friday’s vote, in a sign of discontent in the most conservative wing, 55 Republican deputies have spoken out against it. Something that announces dark clouds on the horizon for the president of the Chamber: three deputies have already announced that they support a motion to dismiss him.