Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky walks with U.S. President Joe Biden during a visit to the White House on Sept. 21.Pool/Getty Images
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will make a last-ditch appeal in Washington this week as congressional Republicans threaten to cut off military aid for Kyiv in the midst of Russia’s stalemated invasion.
The Tuesday White House meeting, at the invitation of U.S. President Joe Biden, follows dire warnings from both governments that Ukraine’s war effort could collapse without more ammunition and weapons from the United States.
Mr. Zelensky will also meet with Republican House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson to plead his case directly.
“As Russia ramps up its missile and drone strikes against Ukraine, the leaders will discuss Ukraine’s urgent needs and the vital importance of the United States’ continued support at this critical moment,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement Sunday.
Mr. Zelensky was in Buenos Aires Sunday for the inauguration of Argentine President Javier Milei, who has offered to play host to a meeting between Mr. Zelensky and Latin American leaders.
Mr. Biden has asked Congress for US$61-billion more military aid for Ukraine, part of a US$110-billion funding package that also includes military help for Israel and Taiwan, and money for security at the U.S. border with Mexico.
Republicans have refused to approve the spending unless Mr. Biden agrees to a crackdown on migrants amid growing ambivalence among conservative voters over helping Ukraine.
The U.S. President, who has staked his foreign policy on holding back Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin’s forces, has made increasingly desperate pleas for Congress to approve the money.
“Republicans in Congress are willing to give Putin the greatest gift he could hope for and abandon our global leadership,” Mr. Biden admonished the opposition last week. “If Putin takes Ukraine, he won’t stop there.”
A Ukrainian delegation to Washington led by Mr. Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, failed to break the logjam last week. In a speech during the visit, he warned of a “big risk” that Ukraine would “lose this war” without further help.
Since Mr. Biden took office, the U.S. has sent about US$75-billion to Ukraine, bolstered by a broad bipartisan consensus in Congress. An increasingly assertive nationalist element in the House Republican caucus, however, has pushed to block further aid since the GOP took control of the lower chamber earlier this year.
In the Senate, meanwhile, Republicans are refusing to give the Democratic majority the votes necessary to overcome a filibuster until Mr. Biden agrees to tougher immigration measures. An attempt to move the spending bill forward last week failed.
Among other things, the GOP is demanding that the White House empower border guards to immediately expel migrants on the southern border without giving them an opportunity to claim asylum; fast-track deportations of unauthorized immigrants within the U.S.; and give up the ability to let specific groups of refugees into the country.
Mr. Biden has used this last power, called “parole,” to temporarily admit people from Ukraine, Haiti, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Afghanistan amid wars, political repression and other crises in those countries.
“The battle for the border,” Mr. Johnson said at a news conference last week. “We do that first as a top priority.”
The President has said he is willing to agree to “significant compromises” on immigration but is believed to be resistant to giving up the power of parole. He is caught between Democratic mayors, including in New York and Washington, who have complained about the number of arriving migrants with scant help from the federal government, and Democratic activists who view any tightening of asylum rules as inhumane.
Mr. Johnson, meanwhile, is being squeezed by the right wing of his caucus, which installed him as Speaker in October after ousting his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, for making a budget deal with Democrats. A recent Pew Research poll showed 48 per cent of Republican voters felt the U.S. was giving too much aid to Ukraine.
Former president Donald Trump, the runaway front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination next year, has insisted that he would immediately end the war in Ukraine if he returns to the Oval Office. Mr. Trump has not said how he would do this but it would likely entail putting pressure on Mr. Zelensky to let Russia annex swaths of Ukrainian territory.
It is all creating a narrow window for Ukraine to secure funding before the election campaign ramps up.
Michael O’Hanlon, a foreign-policy and national-security expert at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington, said the Ukraine war is stuck in such a stalemate that U.S. military assistance may not matter much in the short term. Both sides are heavily dug into defensive positions.
Still, fewer air-defence missiles for Kyiv may allow Russia to destroy more Ukrainian heat and power infrastructure this winter, plunging major cities into darkness and cold, he said.
The U.S.’s decisions are more significant in the longer term, where Russia appears to be hoping to simply outlast Western support for Ukraine. “Putin already feels like he’s in the driver’s seat with the long game here,” Mr. O’Hanlon said.
He contended that the Democrats and GOP should be able to reach an arrangement, given how significant a political liability the number of migrants entering the country could end up being.
“I’m sort of stunned that Democrats are unable to make this deal,” Mr. O’Hanlon said. “It seems to me it should be a fairly straightforward bargain.”
Since failing to make significant headway in a counteroffensive earlier this year, Ukraine has struggled to hold together an international coalition backing it. Last month, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni inadvertently revealed that European Union leaders were feeling “fatigue” over the war and may soon “need a way out.”