WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer heads to Ukraine on Friday to try to reassure President Volodymyr Zelensky and other officials that Congress will provide another round of U.S. aid, even as a package that would give the war-torn country $60 billion is in trouble . American house.
Schumer’s surprise trip comes at a dangerous time for Ukraine. Zelenskyy has said delays in aid from the US and other Western countries are creating an opening for Russia to make progress on the battlefield, while Ukrainian forces are dangerously low on ammunition and weapons.
Lawmakers from both parties have traveled to Europe this past week to pledge that the United States will not abandon Ukraine and other European allies. Yet the road ahead is far from certain. The Senate last week passed a $95 billion package to help Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, but House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has not yet introduced a plan to do so in the House of Representatives to assume.
In an interview before his trip, Schumer, DY, told The Associated Press that he plans to tell Ukrainian officials that “we are going to win this fight, and America is not going to let them down.”
“I feel like I need to be there because it’s so crucial,” Schumer said. “We are in the middle of a vortex, a crucial turning point across the West. And if we abandon Ukraine, the consequences for America will be dire.”
Senate approval of the relief package last week came after the collapse of a broader framework that would have combined the aid with changes in U.S. border policy. The Senate quickly moved on to just the foreign aid portion, approving it on a 70-29 vote, with support from 22 Republicans.
But Republican opponents of aid to Ukraine are a vocal faction in the House of Representatives, where Republicans have limited control and former President Donald Trump, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, has more influence. Trump has opposed the relief package and urged Republicans to vote against it.
Schumer is expected to meet with Zelenskyy. His visit comes days after senators and lawmakers from both parties traveled to the Munich Security Conference to try to calm European leaders, including Zelenskyy, who are closely watching U.S. developments. The conference coincided with Ukraine withdrawing troops from the eastern city of Avdiivka after months of heavy fighting.
Johnson is caught between a broad group of his Republican members who support aid to Ukraine and a vocal right-wing faction that strongly opposes it. Some Republicans in the House of Representatives have threatened to try to remove him from office if he puts the relief package up for a vote. He has said he will “not rush” to a decision.
House Republicans have floated possible ways to complete the aid, including scaling back it, but so far no plan has emerged. It remains unclear how Johnson – just months after replacing ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy – will navigate the deep divisions within his party.
Republicans opposed to the aid say the money would be better spent in the U.S. and should be accompanied by legislation to reduce the record number of border crossings at the southern border. They rejected the Senate’s proposed compromise on border policy, saying it was not strict enough. Some of them want the House to try again to address this issue before moving on to the national security package.
In the Senate, a group of Republicans opposed to foreign aid kept the chamber open all night to protest it before the final vote. Some of them echoed Russian President Vladimir Putin in calling for a negotiated end to the war.
Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, part of the increasingly isolationist wing of the Republican Party, traveled to the Munich conference to make his case. He refuted Zelensky’s pleas by saying that additional money would not “fundamentally change” the reality on the ground.
“Can we send the level of weapons that we have sent over the last 18 months?” Vance asked. “We simply cannot do that. No matter how many checks Congress writes, we are limited there.”
Schumer said the opposition to the aid “might be the opinion of Donald Trump and some of the far-right fanatics. But it is not the opinion of the American people, and I don’t think it is the opinion of the majority of people in the House of Representatives or the Senate.”
He said he plans to tell Zelenskyy and other officials that he will push the House to action, and that “they should not give up and we should not give up.” He said he hoped to gather new details about the trip that could help convince reluctant lawmakers.
President Joe Biden has continued to tell Zelenskyy that he will get the aid to Ukraine. But he has expressed concerns about whether the House could approve the aid before Russia seizes more Ukrainian territory.
“The idea that we’re going to walk away now when they run out of ammunition is absurd to me,” Biden told reporters after speaking with Zelenskyy last weekend.
Schumer said he has “great concerns” about what could happen if Congress does not act.
“They hurt,” he said of Ukraine. “And I think by being there, we give them strength and hope that America is still fighting for them.”