Speaker Johnson is ready to help Ukraine. But there is a nuance
15 March 10:04The Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Michael Johnson, told Republican senators that the House would send them a bill to help Ukraine. However, this document will be different from the one passed by the Senate in February, which provides $61 billion for Ukraine. This is stated in an article by The Hill, according to Kommersant Ukrainian
According to the newspaper, Johnson tried to calm down disappointed GOP senators who asked him about funding for Ukraine during his speech in the Senate. He told the senators that the House of Representatives would send a package of aid to Ukraine to the Senate, but suggested that it should be in the form of a loan or a land-lease programme so that US taxpayers would not have to spend tens of billions of dollars and Ukraine would eventually pay back the money.
Johnson made it clear to journalists that he did not want Putin to win.
“Nobody wants Vladimir Putin to win. I believe he would not stop with Ukraine and would go on to take over Europe. There is right and wrong, in my opinion, good versus evil, and Ukraine is the victim here,”
– johnson said publicly.
But he added that House Republicans are “looking at different options right now” and warned that any House solution “may not look exactly like the Senate bill.”
Discussing this issue, many US congressmen consider the possibility of confiscating Russian assets and transferring them to Ukraine quite likely.
“I had a feeling that after the appropriations bills were considered, they would come back to this [the issue of aid to Ukraine – ed. One of them is related to the confiscation of basically $300 billion of Russian assets,”
– said Senator John Cornyn, one of the 22 Republican senators who voted in favour of the Senate’s emergency foreign aid package last month.
on 13 February, the US Senate approved a bill to help Ukraine. The document provides for assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan totalling $95.34bn. $61bn is earmarked for Ukraine, $14bn for Israel, $4.83bn for Taiwan and other US partners in the Indo-Pacific region. To be passed, the bill must be supported by the US House of Representatives.
“Festival of security agreements”
Amid the disappointing news from the US Congress, the “Festival of Security Agreements with Ukraine” is gaining momentum, with Western countries guaranteeing our security under bilateral agreements such as the Budapest Memorandum. Ukraine has already signed such agreements with the UK, Germany, France, Denmark, Italy, Canada and the Netherlands. Under these agreements, these states pledge to support Ukraine in the face of the Russian threat with finance, weapons and humanitarian aid.
The United States and Poland may be among the next signatories, as it is known that the government is negotiating with these countries.
For example, the US Ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget Brink, said that two rounds of talks between Ukraine and the US have already taken place on the content and content of the relevant agreement with the US government.
Ukraine is desperately trying to gain the support of the world. In particular, the following 5 points of the Ukrainian Formula for Peace were presented at this year’s Davos Economic Forum.