Top officials in the Biden administration warned senators on Tuesday, the 31st of October, that Vladimir Putin will win if they approve aid for Israel but cut funding for Ukraine, reports Politico.
Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, testifying before the Senate Appropriations Committee, argued against decoupling President Joe Biden’s 106 billion US dollars supplemental request for Israel, Ukraine and the Pacific.
The new Speaker, Mike Johnson, plans to vote on legislation to provide 14.3 billion US dollars in military funding for Israel, which meets President Biden’s request but does not include funding for Ukraine. Biden’s proposal includes more than 60 billion US dollars to continue aid to Ukraine.
“I think it would be enormously damaging not only to our values but to our core interests,”
Blinken said of cutting off aid to Ukraine, adding that “it is better to support our efforts now by ensuring success than to pay a much higher price later when we have to face an aggressive world,” he said.
Austin argued that not helping Ukraine “will only make Putin stronger, and he will succeed”. Austin warned that if Putin succeeds in Ukraine, he is unlikely to stop there. He said that “sooner or later he will challenge NATO”, which would likely lead to war.
The future of Biden’s funding plan is uncertain,
with Republicans in the House and Senate divided over whether to combine aid to Ukraine with aid to Israel. Democrats support the idea, but some Republicans oppose it.
Administration officials have argued that the Israeli and Ukrainian conflicts are linked because Russia is using Iranian-supplied technology to attack Ukrainian infrastructure, posing a threat to Israeli and US interests. Senators on both sides of the committee expressed support for this link, in contrast to Republican sceptics in the House of Representatives who oppose further funding for Ukraine.
Since the Russian invasion in February, congress has already approved 113 billion US dollars for Ukraine.
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