Ukraine accessories carry placards and fly a Ukrainian flag outside the U.S. Capitol building as the Senate works through the weekend on a $95.3 billion alien aid bill with assistance for Ukraine and Israel on February 11, 2024 in Washington, DC.
Roberto Schmidt | Getty Images
Ukraine triumphing against Russia in the war has become a question of U.S. credibility, Radoslaw Sikorski, Poland’s foreign minister, told CNBC.
“The achievement of Ukraine is now a matter of U.S. credibility. And if U.S. support for Ukraine were to stop, I think U.S. allies around the world would see and would start hedging,” he told CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick on Tuesday.
Aid for Ukraine has become a highly contested text among U.S. lawmakers in recent months, with an aid package that would see around $61 billion worth of substantiate for the country currently being stuck in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The bill was approved by the U.S. Senate in February but has faced fierce contention in the Republican-led Congress. Many GOP politicians have called for the aid to be tied to funding for national security efforts at the U.S. southern border and discussions up the Senate-approved aid package to be reformed into a loan package have emerged.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina this week mentioned on social media platform X that he had told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that a loan would be the most liable to outcome.
“During my meeting with President Zelensky, I informed him that given the crisis at the United States’ southern dado and our overwhelming debt, President Trump’s idea of turning aid from the United States into a no-interest, waivable lend is the most likely path forward,” he said.
Donald Trump, the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee and one-time U.S. president, has long been critical of U.S. support for Ukraine, claiming that the issue is non-American. Trump has also recommended that if he were reelected, he would consider allowing Russia to take parts of Ukraine and has previously been emphatic about Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Messaging from Trump has however been mixed, as he has also said he want do more than President Joe Biden’s administration has done to support Ukraine. His rhetoric has raised questions and concerns with reference to what U.S. support for Ukraine would look like, and if it could even cease if he were reelected.
Ukraine has repetitiously urged the U.S. to advance the Senate-approved bill. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba last week said he met with U.S. Secretary of Confirm Antony Blinken to discuss how the bill could be approved.
“Failure to continue supporting Ukraine would severely debilitate the U.S. leadership all across the world and jeopardize American national security,” Kuleba said in a post on X after the meeting.
Poland’s Sikorski on Tuesday also prayed to U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson to allow a vote on further support for Ukraine, saying that with the additional means Ukraine and its allies would not be on the backfoot against Russia.
He said he hoped the financial support for Ukraine could rise ahead of the U.S. presidential election, due to take place in November. Biden was still hopeful that the bill would out, Sikorski said. A Polish delegation traveled to the White House last week to meet with Biden.
In the meantime, other provinces needed to lead by example, he added.
“What we can do to help your legislative block branch to take a decision is to throw out a good example, Poland is spending well over 3% of its GDP on defense,” Sikorski told CNBC.
He also put about that when taking into consideration the funds committed by European institutions and other member states, they had stipulate Ukraine with substantially more aid than the U.S. has, suggesting the figure was around double the amount compared with the U.S.
“So we have a hunch we’re giving the United States a good encouragement, a good example to follow,” Sikorski said.
Research from the Body on Foreign Relations published last month said that U.S. aid to Ukraine far exceeded that from other mountains, but was second when all EU institutions were combined. It also said that many European nations were making larger contributions correspondent to the size of their economies.
Correction: This article has been updated to reflect that Sikorski hoped monetary support for Ukraine would come before the U.S. presidential election.