Congress is out of session.

The latest on U.S. aid for Ukraine.

The Senate did it. They stayed on Capitol Hill last weekend and, after pulling an allnighter on Monday, eventually voted in favor of the national security supplemental funding bill early Tuesday morning.

But now the problem is the House. Speaker Mike Johnson is complaining that the bill doesn’t include border security provisions. A bipartisan group of House lawmakers introduced a new bill on Friday that includes Ukraine aid, border policy changes, and assistance for Israel, Taiwan, etc.

But lawmakers have now left for recess until the end of the month. When they return, they must turn their attention to passing appropriations bills, or the government could shut down.

And even if this new bill could garner enough support to pressure Johnson to bring it to the House floor for a vote, it would then need to head back to the Senate, further delaying passage.

It’s worth noting that the bill that passed the Senate would almost undoubtedly pass the House if it were voted on. But Johnson will probably not bring it to the House floor, even though 22 Senate Republicans voted for it (nearly half of their conference). That’s because a vocal minority of isolationist House lawmakers could kick him out of his job for bringing up a bill they don’t like.

So that is the state of play in Washington. A compromise bill that enjoys majority support is stuck in limbo because a tiny fraction of radical lawmakers enjoy a lot of control in the House.

Congress returns to work during the last week of February. March is going to be a wild ride. You can read more about this in my weekly news blurbs below.

Also, Lazo Magazine is finally posting on social media, so we’ll be sharing more stuff there in the coming weeks. You can follow along on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. And if you can donate to Lazo Magazine or become a paid subscriber of this newsletter, that is always welcome. This is a new baby that needs your help to grow!

What I’m writing:

• I examined a new White House memorandum that could be the first step toward conditioning U.S. aid to Israel. The move comes as the Israeli military plans an assault on the city of Rafah in southern Gaza, which is believed to be one of the most densely populated areas in the world. This story is unlocked and free to read.

• I interviewed Artak Beglaryan, the former minister of state and human rights ombudsman for Nagorno-Karabakh, for this week’s Q&A series. We talked about what happened to Nagnorno-Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian population after Azerbaijan forced them to flee in September and his advocacy in Washington for their right to return. This interview is unlocked and free to read.

My weekly news blurbs:

What I’m reading:

• Russia’s jailed opposition leader and longtime Putin critic Alexei Navalny died in a Russian prison colony, Russia’s prison service announced, without giving a cause of death. The Washington Post has the story.

• German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock condemned Israel’s plans to launch a ground offensive in Rafah, saying it would create a “humanitarian catastrophe.” “More than half of Gaza’s population is currently seeking shelter in Rafah,” Baerbock said at a news conference after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “These people cannot simply vanish into thin air.” Reuters has the story.

• The prime ministers of Spain and Ireland asked the European Commission to urgently review whether Israel is complying with its human rights obligations. In a joint letter, both leaders said attacking Rafah posed “a grave and imminent threat that the international community must urgently confront.”

• U.S. President Joe Biden protected thousands of Palestinians in the United States from deportation for the next 18 months, using an obscure immigration authority as he faces mounting criticism over U.S. support for Israel’s war in Gaza, the New York Times reports. Around 6,000 Palestinians will be eligible under the Deferred Enforced Departure program.

• Russia is preparing for a military confrontation with the West within the next decade but could be deterred by a counter build-up of armed forces, according to Estonia’s Foreign Intelligence Service.

• Russia is spending around one-third of its budget on defense and is burning through arms, ammunition, and troops at an unsustainable pace, according to a report from the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

• Ukraine claims it has evidence that Russia fired an advanced hypersonic missile – one that experts say is almost impossible to shoot down – for the first time since the start of the war, CNN reports.

• Ukraine’s key eastern town of Avdiivka “is at risk of falling into Russian control,” national security spokesperson John Kirby said during a briefing in Washington. The BBC has the report.

• Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that several “saboteurs,” including Ukrainian and Belarusian nationals, were detained on the border of the two countries in a “counter-terrorist operation,” Reuters reports.

• Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are among the most hawkish EU countries on Russia. But they’ve struggled to stop border crossings into Belarus, used by people seeking to evade sanctions on goods that could have both civilian and military uses. Politico Europe has the story.

• Russian police put Estonia’s prime minister Kaja Kallas, its state secretary, and Lithuania’s culture minister on the wanted list, according to the Russian Interior Ministry’s database. Reuters has the story.

• The Council of the European Union adopted a decision and a regulation that paved the way toward using the profits generated by confiscated Russian assets to finance Ukraine’s reconstruction, Politico Europe reports.

• Russian forces are using Elon Musk’s SpaceX satellite system near the front line in occupied areas of Ukraine, the Wall Street Journal reports.

• The European Union “will lose” Serbia to China unless it lets the country join the bloc soon, and should do so before admitting Ukraine, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said. Politico Europe has the story.

•Kosovo’s Premier Albin Kurti has banned the use of Serbian dinars, Bloomberg reports.

• Although Kosovo adopted the euro in 2002, people in Serb-majority regions still use the Serbian dinar. Government attempts to enforce the euro as the country's only legal currency have angered the ethnic Serb community, DW reports.

• The failure of U.S. nation-building in Kosovo serves as a warning for Ukraine, Politico Europe’s Matthew Karnitschnig writes in a dispatch from Pristina.

• The President of Hungary, Katalin Novak, resigned amid public outcry over her decision to pardon a man involved in a sex abuse scandal at a children’s home, the New York Times reports.

• Armenia said that four of its soldiers were killed by Azerbaijani fire along the heavily militarized border, the first fatal incident since peace talks began last year to end more than 30 years of intermittent war, Reuters reports.

• Azerbaijan is planning a "full-scale war" against Armenia, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan warned after a skirmish on their border left four Armenian troops dead. AFP has the story.

• Finland elected the center-right politician Andrew Stubb as its new President in the first national election since the country joined NATO, the New York Times reports.

• A Dutch appeals court ordered the government to block all exports of F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel over concerns they were being used in violation of international law during Israel’s Gaza offensive, Reuters reports. The Dutch government is lodging an appeal to the Dutch Supreme Court.

• The administration of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro arrested human rights activist and lawyer Rocio San Miguel, who specializes in studying Venezuela’s corrupt armed forces, the Associated Press reports.

• South Korea established diplomatic relations with Cuba, one of North Korea’s Cold War-era allies, the foreign ministry said, adding that the ties mark an “important turnround” for South Korea in its efforts to strengthen diplomacy in Latin America. Reuters has the story.

• North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's sister, Kim Yo Jong, expressed an optimistic perspective on future relations between North Korea and Japan, even implying that Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida would one day visit Pyongyang, Voice of America reports.

• Myanmar’s ruling military plans to conscript young people for mandatory military service from April and also require retired security personnel to serve, Reuters reports.

• Nawaz Sharif and Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s parties in Pakistan reached a deal to form a government after last week’s contested election, the BBC reports.

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You can write to me for any reason: c.maza@protonmail.com