Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky briefed House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) on the war in Ukraine in a phone call that comes as Congress wrestles with a path forward on providing the embattled country with increased foreign aid.
The Ukrainian president spoke to Johnson on the latest attacks by the Russian military, he said in a post on X on Thursday afternoon, thanking the speaker “personally” as well as the rest of the U.S. government for its support while also making the case for continued aid.
“In this situation, quick passage of US aid to Ukraine by Congress is vital,” Zelensky said. “We recognize that there are differing views in the House of Representatives on how to proceed, but the key is to keep the issue of aid to Ukraine as a unifying factor.”
The phone call comes as congressional leaders have disagreed on how to move forward with providing foreign aid to countries such as Ukraine and Israel.
There are currently two competing discharge petitions circulating among House lawmakers seeking to bring Ukraine aid to the floor, although neither proposal has reached the minimum support needed to advance the legislation without Johnson’s approval.
For a discharge petition to be brought to the floor, it must receive signatures from 218 members. However, that is easier said than done, as any proposal put forward must be able to garner substantial bipartisan support.
One of the petitions put forward by House Rules Committee ranking member Jim McGovern (D-MA) would advance the supplemental bill pairing Ukraine and Israel aid that passed the Senate in mid-February. That bill has been deemed dead on arrival by Johnson because of its lack of border security measures, which were stripped from the bill before its passage in the upper chamber.
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Meanwhile, there’s another discharge petition floating around the House that represents a compromise version of the Senate bill and includes border security provisions. That effort, led by Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) and Jared Golden (D-ME), has received pushback from some House Democrats who reject the unconditional aid to Israel as it wages a war on Hamas.
Johnson has felt pressure from all sides to bring some sort of foreign aid proposal to the floor, including from his Republican colleagues in the upper chamber. The speaker has indicated he will move forward in some fashion to advance Ukraine aid, although it remains unclear what path he may take. The Washington Examiner contacted the speaker’s office for comment.