Republicans offer Kyiv reassurance on aid package. Do they know something we don’t?

Brian Bonner's story on Feb. 29, 2024, for The Cipher Brief, on the two-year commemorations in Kyiv of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Editor’s Note: As of April 17, 2024, a $60 billion U.S. aid package for Ukraine still had not been approved in the U.S. House.

Republicans offer Kyiv reassurance on aid package. Do they know something we don't?

Four years ago, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Kyiv to reassure President Volodymyr Zelensky that the U.S. would stand by Ukraine after Russia illegally annexed Crimea in the eastern part of the country. Last week, Pompeo was back.

In fact, the former Secretary under former President Donald Trump has visited Ukraine multiple times since that 2020 meeting with Zelensky. But this time, Pompeo told an interviewer in the capital, Kyiv, that he believes the U.S. will once again support Ukraine by passing a $60 billion aid package that—at the urging of Trump—is currently being held up by hard-right Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives.

“I’m convinced the United States will continue to provide the support that Ukraine needs,” said Pompeo in an interview published in The Kyiv Post. “Regardless of party politics inside the United States, it is the consensus view across the large swath of the American political leadership that it is important to America to continue to support Ukraine’s effort to push back against the atrocities of Vladimir Putin.”

But the U.S. House of Representatives returned to session on Wednesday with no real sign that the aid package is any closer to being passed as a small group of Republicans continue to tie the measure to stricter U.S. policies at the U.S.’s own southern border.

“The first priority of the country is our border and making sure it’s secure,” House Speaker Mike Johnson—who has refused to bring the issue to a vote—told reporters after a two-week recess during which Russia successfully forced a Ukrainian military retreat from the city of Avdiivka.

Mixed Messages from Republicans

Pompeo told a February 19 conference sponsored by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation that “providing Ukraine with the support it needs to deter Vladimir Putin today, a year from now and 20 years from now, is imperative for my country. That is why I am confident we will get this right.” 

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, a Pennsylvania Republican who co-chairs the House Ukraine Caucus, spoke alongside Pompeo at the conference, telling the audience that he believes the aid package will eventually be passed. 

“Ukraine will get the assistance that it needs, this is not just Ukraine’s fight. It’s the world’s fight. Ukraine is on the front line of democracy,” Fitzpatrick said. “Ukraine is not going to fail. The world will not allow Ukraine to fail.” 

Ambassador Kurt Volker, who was in Kyiv attending the first graduation ceremony of the American University that he co-founded, told The Cipher Brief that he is “absolutely confident” that the House will approve the aid package. 

“When you have 80 percent of the Republicans and 80 at least of the Democrats in the House and Senate all wanting to get something done, it will get done,” Volker said. 

Volker is right about the numbers – but his reassurance and the other comments leave out an uncomfortable truth: House Majority Leader Mike Johnson must bring the bill to a vote – and the longer he holds out, the more deadly the situation becomes for Ukraine. 

After a White House meeting on Tuesday that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called “one of the most intense” he’s ever experienced in the Oval Office, Johnson continued to declare his position unchanged. In other words, for now, there will be no vote. 

The Mood in Kyiv

Despite the reassurances, many Ukrainians say they are so worried that they are following the debates on Capitol Hill more closely than the battlefields in their own country.  

Journalist Nataliya Gumenyuk, who moderated the Kyiv event with Pompeo and Fitzpatrick, said Ukrainians—even soldiers in their trenches—are hungry for news from Washington and deeply worried. 

“Ukrainians, at night, when there is an air alert, go and check their phones for news about voting in Congress,” Gumenyuk said. Both civilians and military follow the news from Washington closely.” 

During a question-and-answer session, one student thanked Pompeo and Fitzpatrick for their assurances, but said, “We will calm down only when this supplemental aid is approved.”   

Outside another conference on February 24, hundreds of demonstrators were demanding that Ukraine’s government do more to win freedom for nearly 1,000 soldiers who are being held prisoner by Russia. But they also understood the consequences of inaction in Washington. “If the United States helps, we will live. If it doesn’t, we will die,” said a protestor. 

The fears reverberate throughout Ukrainian society. Former Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk told the BBC last week, that the mood is “quite gloomy, frankly speaking.” He added, “We are desperate to get this kind of support from our Western partners. We, as in the entire free world, are not allowed to lose this war. We can win because this is a righteous fight. But we desperately need ammunition.” 

President Volodymyr Zelensky tried to balance a message of self-sufficiency with his own pleas for help in a recent interview with FOX News. “Will Ukrainians survive without Congress’ support? Of course, but not all of us…and Putin will go through Eastern Europe too because he wants it.”