The future of US aid for Ukraine hangs in the balance after a last-gasp deal to avoid a government shutdown, despite President Joe Biden's attempts to reassure Kyiv it will get what it needs to fight Russia.
Barely a week after President Volodymyr Zelensky was in Washington appealing for more funds, the compromise struck in Congress late Sunday dropped new funding for Ukraine amid opposition from hardline Republicans.
Biden urged Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Sunday to"stop the games" and said he"fully expects" him to secure passage of a separate bill for Ukraine funding soon. "That ought to worry leaders in Kyiv, and I think in Moscow they're celebrating the signs that our support may be waning," Bruen, president of the Global Situation Room consultancy and a former US diplomat, told AFP.
First, there is a bid to unseat McCarthy next week by hardline Republican Matt Gaetz, one of a core of hard-right members of the party implacably opposed to any more aid for Ukraine. Skepticism is spreading from the hardline Republicans to more moderate lawmakers who say they won't write Ukraine a"blank check."
Making the problem even tougher is a Republican impeachment inquiry into Biden over his son Hunter's business deals in Ukraine.