Senate Republicans Vote Down $60 Billion in Ukraine Aid as Russia Blasts West for Obstructing Peace Talks

 

Senate Republicans voted down $60 billion in new aid to Ukraine in the US on Wednesday, holding out for  radical changes to US immigration policy before sending any more money to the corrupt Kiev regime’s losing attempt to conquer ethnically Russian territories in Eastern Ukraine. Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova charged the UK with sabotaging a peace deal in 2022 and accused Ukraine of “doing the will of the United States and Britain.”

The Senate voted along party lines, falling nine Republican votes short of the 60 votes needed to pass the $60 billion boondoggle. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) changed his vote to “nay” near the end of the tally in a procedural move that will allow the upper chamber to revisit the proposal at a later date, Kyiv Post reported.

White House occupant Joe Biden accused Republicans of being “willing to give Putin the greatest gift he could hope for”, invoking the threat of a Russian attack on NATO.

“If (Putin) keeps going and then he attacks a NATO ally… then we’ll have something that we don’t seek and that we don’t have today: American troops fighting Russian troops”, the former Senator from the corrupt state of Delaware said.

“Who is prepared to walk away from holding Putin accountable for this behavior?”, the elderly former Vice President said. “Who in the United States are prepared to walk away from that?  I tell you, I’m not prepared to walk away, and I don’t think the American people are either.”

Incredibly, many Democrats still believe Mr. Biden received 81 million votes in 2020, 12 million more than Barack Obama received in 2008, and therefore address Mr. Biden as “President”.

The US State Department announced it was rolling out a $175 million tranche of pre-approved aid for Kyiv, in a package that includes HIMARS rockets, plus other missiles and ammunition.

Speaking to Kyiv Post, a congressional observer estimated that “aid for Ukraine may be punted to around Jan. 19, the deadline by which the US’ 2024 budget must be approved to prevent a shutdown. Some hope that at that point, Republicans and Democrats will be more open to cutting deals. However, though the proposed 2024 House version of the budget bill included authorization for a renewal of Ukraine’s Lend Lease, the Senate version does not.”

“Some of Ukraine’s most senior leaders are currently in Washington, lobbying for more aid”, Kyiv Post wrote. “Though what successes they have had – or have not had, is not public, they would undoubtedly agree with Mr. Biden’s assertion that “We can’t let Putin win.  I’ll say it again: We can’t let Putin win… Any disruption in our ability to supply Ukraine clearly strengthens Putin’s position.””

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova blasted British diplomats for allegedly putting pressure on the Ukrainian authorities to come to the negotiating table with Russia.

“I have no idea what kind of a negotiating table they are talking about, given that it was British diplomats who knocked it out from under the hands of Kiev negotiators in 2022,” Zakharova said. “Perhaps by means of such leaks the British authorities are trying to produce an impression they are peacemakers.”

Commenting on a report in The Washington Post that US and British military officers had held tabletop war games to build Ukraine’s summer counteroffensive, Zakharova said: “There is no doubt that those plans for a counteroffensive or however they call this utter disaster was certainly developed outside of Kiev. For the Kiev regime does not have this capability.”

“Nor will they have any material base for building certain military and strategic infrastructure to conduct similar military actions in the future,” Zakharova said: “All this is being done exclusively by the West.”

The Russian Foreign Ministry had repeatedly pointed to Ukrainian forces being directly guided by NATO allies, Zakharova said, who provide the Kiev regime with exact coordinates to strike targets with Western-made rockets. “That is, in effect, Ukrainian forces and the Kiev regime have been doing the will of those countries, primarily the United States and Britain, which act as signal callers,” she said.

Russia’s First Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Dmitry Polyansky expressed hope that not all Ukrainians will be sacrificed to the Biden Regime’s proxy war.

“Hearing such sober voices in this country is encouraging. Maybe not all Ukrainians will be sacrificed for the benefit of corrupt [Ukrainian President Vladimir] Zelensky regime and his Western backers in a futile pursuit of US geopolitical Russophobic interests,” Polyansky wrote on Twitter/X, commenting on the latest episode of Tucker Carlson, in which Carlson asked “how could Washington possibly send tens of billions more to sleazy oligarchs in Ukraine now that the whole enterprise has been revealed as a fruitless, corrupt and incredibly destructive disaster?”

Polyansky said “the US has exposed itself in the eyes of the world as an unscrupulous backer of a Neo-Nazi Russophobic regime which is ready to sacrifice its last men as cannon fodder for the geopolitical interests of the other country.”

The amount of newly pledged aid to Ukraine from Western countries reached a historic low in August-October 2023, Ukrainska Pravda reported, down almost 90% compared to the same period in 2022.

“According to the study, in the period from August to October 2023, the total value of new aid packages amounted to €2.11 billion, the lowest figure since January 2022. The most important group of active providers are Germany, Finland, Ireland, Croatia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland, as well as Canada and the United Kingdom.

The United States remains the largest provider of military aid with a total of €44 billion. However, Germany is also quickly catching up with its military commitments totalling more than €17 billion. The EU countries continue to catch up with the US in terms of military aid pledges and are now ahead of it. Of the total €25 billion pledged for heavy weapons (January 2022 – October 2023), 43 per cent is for the United States and 47 per cent for all EU countries and institutions combined.”

The G7 will help Ukraine in its attempts to collect damages from Russia, the G7 leaders announced:

“In light of the urgency of disrupting Russia’s attempts to destroy the Ukrainian economy and failure to abide by its international law obligations, we will explore all possible avenues to aid Ukraine in obtaining compensation from Russia, consistent with our respective legal systems and international law,” the statement said.

The G7 emphasized that Russia needs to end hostilities in Ukraine and pay for the damage it has allegedly caused. The statement claimed that according to the World Bank, the damage exceeds $400 billion dollars.