U.S. Congress to move quickly to consider, and support, new Ukraine aid

By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Congress will transfer rapidly to think about President Joe Biden’s request for extra help for Ukraine, lawmakers stated on Thursday, with members of each events predicting sturdy help for the request even earlier than understanding how massive it will be.

Home of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi instructed reporters that the Home would take up the Biden’s proposal as quickly as subsequent week.

“We’ll find out about that within the subsequent day or so, to be taken up as quickly as we are able to subsequent week,” she instructed reporters at a photograph alternative with Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal earlier than a bipartisan assembly on the Capitol concerning the wants of Ukraine.

Help for Ukraine is likely one of the few areas of settlement between Biden’s fellow Democrats and Republicans. Earlier help packages for Ukraine, together with $13.6 billion authorised final month, have handed almost unanimously within the Democratic-controlled Congress.

Biden, who introduced an extra $800 million in navy help for Ukraine on Thursday, stated the quantity of extra assist in the upcoming request was nonetheless being determined.

“I believe it will likely be met with sturdy bipartisan help,” Republican Senator Thom Tillis instructed reporters on a convention name from Kosovo, a part of a bipartisan journey to Europe that additionally included stops in Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Belgium.

“When you check out what President Zelenskiy and the Ukrainian military and the inhabitants as a complete have achieved, we owe them a debt of gratitude and a method we are able to pay it again is to be sure that we offer sturdy bipartisan help for extra funding,” Tillis stated.

Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen, who chairs the Senate Overseas Relations Europe subcommittee, additionally thought Congress would act rapidly. “I imagine there’s sturdy bipartisan help to do every little thing we are able to to help the Ukrainians on this unprovoked warfare in opposition to Russia,” she stated.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle Enhancing by William Maclean and Mark Potter)