Democrat warns Putin will ‘roll over Ukraine’ without more U.S. aid

Russian President Vladimir Putin will “roll over Ukraine in the coming months” if the U.S. Congress does not quickly pass more assistance to support Kyiv’s war effort, Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo. told Semafor following his trip to Ukraine.

“If we pull the rug out from under them, that’s going to be on us, not on the Ukrainians,” Bennet said in an interview on Sunday. “And it will be the most shameful thing that we’ll have done, I think, in my lifetime.”

Bennet was part of a congressional delegation led by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer that traveled to Lviv, Ukraine, late last week for the grim two-year anniversary of Russia’s war. The group met with Ukrainian military leaders and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who told the senators that his country can win the war if the U.S. approves more assistance, Bennet said. He declined to specify how Zelenskyy defined victory.

“He felt very strongly that if we continued our support and therefore the world continued its support, that Ukraine could actually win this war and that the war could end on terms that were noble from the Ukrainian people’s perspective,” Bennet said.

Ukrainian officials also told the lawmakers that they wouldn’t have had to withdraw troops from Avdiivka if there weren’t uncertainty over U.S. assistance, echoing comments made by Biden administration officials. Bennet warned that the stalled aid package is not only causing Ukrainian soldiers to ration ammunition now, but is also making it more difficult for military leaders to cement war plans for the coming year.

The Colorado Democrat also blamed Putin directly for the recent death of jailed Russian opposition Alexei Navalny, saying his killing was meant to send a message to Western nations.

“You would have to be completed deluded to think that his assassination of Navalny is not a complete ‘fuck you’ — if you’ll excuse the expression — to the West because of our dithering on getting this aid done,” Bennet said.

“He thinks that he’s winning, not on the Ukrainian battlefield, but I think he thinks he’s winning on the divisions in our domestic politics,” Bennet said, blaming a “deeply counterproductive strain of isolationism” in the Republican Party for hindering Ukraine assistance.

Supporters of Ukraine aid are trying to increase the pressure on the Republican-controlled House of Representatives to take up the foreign aid package recently passed in a bipartisan vote by the Senate. House Speaker Mike Johnson has pumped the brakes on the measure, which includes $60 billion in Ukraine assistance.

Bennet told me that he planned to spend Sunday calling House lawmakers to “get their sense of how this can move forward.” Schumer indicated on CNN that he would brief Johnson on the trip and called on the speaker to follow their lead and visit Ukraine.

“We all understand the difficult political dynamics the speaker is in. We all understand that. But none of this can be an excuse for not delivering here,” Bennet said.

The path forward for U.S. assistance is deeply uncertain. A growing number of House Republicans oppose more U.S. funding for Ukraine, though it’s widely believed that a foreign aid bill would pass if it were put on the floor for a vote.

Those pushing for aid argue that if Russia were able to overrun Ukraine, Putin would be emboldened to threaten NATO members, which would thereby draw the U.S. into a direct conflict with Russia. Opponents, meanwhile, argue that the U.S. should be spending more resources to solve domestic issues (like border security) or focusing more on threats from China.

Further complicating matters is doubt about Ukraine’s ability to claw back more territory. As the Ukraine war enters its third year, Zelenskyy’s optimistic view of the path forward is not widely shared. Some Western officials and analysts believe that the best case scenario for Ukraine would be to hold the line this year, the New York Times reported.

“The likely scenario is that this remains a slog in both directions and that neither side makes a breakthrough,” Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told me last week.

While success is a relative term at this point, O’Hanlon said Ukraine, supported by U.S. military aid, could make some small territorial gains and create “a sense of momentum” that “facilitates a favorable peace process.”

During an appearance at the Munich Security Conference earlier this month, Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, who has opposed more U.S. aid to Ukraine, argued that “there’s no clear end point” to the war and that the U.S. can’t produce enough munitions to support wars in Europe and the Middle East and “potentially a contingency in East Asia.”

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan insisted Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that “of course Ukraine can win” the war. Sullivan also said on ABC that Johnson indicated to him “that he would like to get the funding for Ukraine” and that “he’s trying to figure out a way to do it.”

Schumer tried to assure a Ukrainian drone commander stationed in eastern Ukraine on a phone call last week, the Washington Post reported.