Zelensky arrives in a Washington in disarray.

Can Congress get more money for Ukraine before it's too late?

The big question in Washington this week was whether and when Ukraine will get more money to fund its defense against Russia’s invasion.

Republicans and Democrats in the Senate are largely united in their support for Ukraine. I only spoke to four Republican Senators who said they don’t want to appropriate more funds for Kyiv, and one of them said he wouldn’t block a continuing resolution (a temporary spending bill that allows Congress to keep the government up and running while it negotiations longer-term appropriations bills) if it included money for Ukraine.

But the House is another story. There are 221 Republicans in the House of Representatives, and only around 89 are staunch supporters of Ukraine. The rest range from being vehemently opposed to giving Ukraine more money to somewhat lukewarm and on the fence.

Now, it would be easy to think that if only 34-90 or so House Republicans oppose Ukraine funding (that estimate is based on voting records and statements), it should be easy to pass a funding bill without them. And in theory, you would be right. You only need 218 votes out of 435 to move a bill from the House to the Senate.

But House Speaker Kevin McCarthy knows that if he works with Democrats to override his Republican colleagues, he could lose his job. Essentially, a very small number of radical Republicans are holding him hostage, and he is letting them because he really wants to be Speaker of the House.

This doesn’t only apply to Ukraine funding. House lawmakers went home this weekend without passing appropriations bills to fund the U.S. government and without voting on a continuing resolution to keep the government open while they negotiate. Only 5 working days are left until the end of the fiscal year.

In other words, it looks almost certain that the U.S. government will shut down at the end of September.

And that’s where the big problem lies. Ukraine is running out of money. Sources tell me only a few weeks of supplies are left to fuel the counteroffensive. The Biden administration is asking Congress for $24 billion ASAP. They sent all their top national security officials to brief the Senate this week to highlight the urgency.

The administration also offered to brief the House, but Speaker McCarthy declined.

Now, the Senate and the House need to agree on a continuing resolution to fund the U.S. government while the House tries to pass appropriations bills.

And there’s no way the Senate will pass a continuing resolution that doesn’t include money for Ukraine. McCarthy knows that. The question is how long he’ll let this drag on.

The Senate is allegedly drafting its own continuing resolution that will include Ukraine aid. Will McCarthy drag his feet to placate the far right only to pass a CR at the last minute? Will he be willing to lose his job to keep the government running? It’s all TBD.

That’s where Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky comes in. He knows he needs the United States to continue funding Ukraine’s defense, and he arrived in Congress this week to try to move the needle. He met personally with McCarthy and briefed a bipartisan group of Senators.

It was a masterclass in diplomacy, in which Zelensky highlighted the solidarity between the U.S. and Ukraine and his gratitude for all Washington has done. Senators said they were shocked by his stamina and that he is an impressive person who shows no fatigue.

But Zelensky’s message was clear: the war in Ukraine will turn into a frozen conflict if we don’t get more money soon.

This newsletter is slightly more U.S.-focused than usual, and I hope you’ll forgive me, but I have been steeped in these conversations all week.

If you want to know more about what’s going on in the U.S. Congress and what the Biden administration is telling U.S. lawmakers about Russia’s war on Ukraine, you can read my deep dive in the section below. Here’s my crappy video of when Zelensky stopped briefly to speak to us:

There were also a few days of violent conflict in Nagorno Karabakh this week after Azerbaijan’s troops entered the territory. I wrote about that in the news blurbs below.

Gaiane Beglarian, a resident of Nagorno Karabakh whom I’ve interviewed previously, is organizing a GoFundMe to help civilians driven from their homes. I’m sharing that here in case any of you want to help.

What I’m writing:

• A look at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to Congress this week and what comes next for Ukraine funding.

“Once McCarthy figures out he can’t pass anything and he can’t get a CR signed into law until he talks to the Senate, Ukraine aid will be on the table,” Senator Chris Murphy told me. “Obviously, the House is signaling that it’s willing to abandon Ukraine, which is super dangerous.”

My weekly news blurbs:

What I’m reading:

Kyiv, Ukraine by Robert Anasch.

• National Geographic has a fascinating article on the Tarin Basim mummies of Xingianj. Uyghur nationalists claim the mummies are their forbears, but the Chinese government refutes this and has been reluctant to allow scientists to study the mummies or look at their ancient DNA.

• Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia imposed bans on Ukrainian grain and other products in defiance of the European Union’s ending of a temporary ban, the New York Times reports.

• Ukraine is suing Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia at the World Trade Organization over their decision to ban Ukrainian grain imports, Politico reports.

• Prime Minister Mateusz Morawieck said Poland will stop supplying weapons to Ukraine as a diplomatic dispute over grain escalates, the BBC reports.

• DW has an explainer on why Poland says it no longer wants to send arms to Ukraine.

• Robert Fico, the frontrunner in Slovakia’s Sep. 30 election, has said, “We are a peaceful country. We will not send a single round to Ukraine,” Reuters reports.

• The Ukrainian government dismissed Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar and six other top officials in the Defense Ministry as it deals with corruption, the Washington Post reports. The dismissal comes two weeks after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ousted defense chief Oleksii Reznikov.

• Ukrainian forces sent their first armored vehicles through Russia’s main defensive line in the southeast of the country, marking significant progress as they overcame antitank obstacles, the Wall Street Journal reports.

• Coal extracted in Russia-annexed Ukrainian territory has been exported to Turkey, a NATO member, Reuters reports.

• Police in Montenegro are seeking the arrest of four Serbian citizens and two unknown persons allegedly involved in digging a tunnel into the Montenegrin Higher Court’s storage area in the capital, Podgorica, where trial evidence is kept, Balkan Insight reports.

• Bulgarian police clashed with protestors who called for the pro-Western government to resign and for the closure of NATO military bases, Reuters reports. The protestors are supporters of the ultra-nationalist Vazrazhdane (Revival) party.

• Russia says it has no information on the health of Ramzan Kadyrov after reports suggested the Chechen leader was sick, Al Jazeera reports.

• Two videos of Kadyrov, the man known as Vladimir Putin’s “attack dog,” were released just days after he was reported to be in critical condition, the Daily Beast reports.

• Azerbaijan's defense ministry says it has begun "anti-terrorist" operations in areas of its Nagorno-Karabakh region under ethnic-Armenian control, the BBC reports. Azerbaijan said its operations would continue until all ethnic-Armenian separatists surrender.

• Radio Free Europe has a good explainer on why Azerbaijan attacked Nagorno Karabakh now.

• Thousands of protesters gathered in Yerevan, the Armenian capital, yesterday, demanding the resignation of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan over his perceived failure to support Armenians in Karabakh after they surrendered to Azerbaijan, Reuters reports.

• Armenia is prepared to host tens of thousands of displaced people from the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh after its surrender to Azerbaijan, the BBC reports.

• The Russian government is moving to take direct control of the over 1,000 Wagner Group troops in the Central African Republic, the Washington Post reports.

• A lopsided majority of Brazil's Supreme Court ruled against efforts to restrict native peoples' rights to protected reservations on their ancestral lands, in a win for Indigenous activists and climate campaigners, France 24 reports.

• Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused “agents of the government of India” of assassinating Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh community leader in British Columbia, the New York Times reports.

• Fears of military escalation in Gaza mount after a summer of relative calm, the Washington Post reports.

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu directed nuclear and security specialists to work with the United States as they try to normalize Saudi relations with Israel by possibly allowing Saudi Arabia to enrich uranium, the Wall Street Journal reports.

• Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas argued in his speech to the United Nations General Assembly that peace in the region would be impossible without a Palestinian state, as Israel-Saudi normalization is showing clear signs of moving ahead, The Times for Israel reports.

• Survivors of the deadly flood in the Libyan coastal city of Derna have begun protesting, calling for an international investigation into the disaster, the Wall Street Journal reports.

• The military juntas of Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso signed a security pact, vowing to aid each other in case of any internal rebellion or external attack, Reuters reports.

• The United Nations International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia said war crimes and crimes against humanity are still being committed ten months after a peace deal was signed between the government and regional forces from Tigray, Al Jazeera reports.

• China’s Defence Minister Li Shangfu, who disappeared from public view after being investigated for corruption, is only the latest senior official who appears to have been removed as part of President Xi Jinping’s continuing purge. The BBC has the story.

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