A pro-Ukraine group is publicly calling on progressive House Democrats to help get the Senate bill with aid for the embattled country to a vote in the House, provocatively comparing them to the famously obstructionist House Freedom Caucus in the process.
With aid stalled by House Republicans and the GOP’s presumptive presidential candidate increasingly public with his antipathy toward Ukraine, a so-called discharge petition signed by the majority of House members could end up being the last hope for advancing a bipartisan Senate bill that would provide about $60 billion in needed weapons and economic aid.
Many progressive Democrats, however, have resisted signing on because the package also includes $14 billion in aid to Israel, a country at least some of them believe is waging a campaign of genocide in Gaza in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre of civilians. Roughly 30,000 Palestinians have died in Israel attacks since the war’s start, and the humanitarian situation in the Palestinian enclave is dire.
“We recognize that there are Democrats who have expressed reservations about non-Ukraine elements of this package, but we urge them to sign this petition to stand with the Ukrainian people and help get the bill to a vote,” said Scott Cullinane, director of government affairs with Razom for Ukraine, in a statement obtained by HuffPost.
“We urge these members of Congress to do the right thing and join us in the fight. There is nothing progressive about consigning 42 million Ukrainians to Russian abuse and the horrors of military occupation.”
Since Russia’s unprovoked invasion in February 2022, more than 10,000 Ukrainian civilians, and between 30,000 and 70,000 members of the country’s military have died, with Ukrainians managing to kill hundreds of thousands of Russian invaders. Russia has managed to seize hundreds of miles of Ukrainian territory, but an attempted Ukrainian counteroffensive last year failed to meaningfully change the state of the war.
Officials in President Joe Biden’s administration and pro-Ukraine lawmakers have regularly argued aid to Ukraine is not only the moral thing to do, but also a cost-effective way to inflict pain on a major geopolitical rival.
Cullinane said allowing the bill to come to a vote would not be the same as voting for it. Ukraine advocates in both parties believe the Senate bill could easily clear 300 votes in the 432-member House.
Razom’s effort is notable because it’s focused on House progressives. A discharge petition could work if Democrats provide all or the vast majority of 217 signatures needed for a discharge petition. As of Friday, 36 of 213 Democrats had not signed, with 27 of the holdouts being members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
“Blocking bipartisan legislation from even being considered is reminiscent of tactics embraced by the Freedom Caucus, whose approach to foreign policy endangers our national security—responsible members of the House must show they’re better than that,” Cullinane said.
A CPC spokesperson said it was Republicans who were responsible for the delay in helping Ukraine and objected to the comparison with the Freedom Caucus, which is made up of hardline conservative and libertarian GOP House members.
“Republicans are singularly responsible for holding up Ukraine aid. Progressives have voted for aid to Ukraine four times over the last two Congresses — as opposed to Freedom Caucus members who voted against Ukraine aid each time — and progressives will continue to support Ukraine as it fights Russia’s brutal invasion,” the spokesperson told HuffPost in an email.
CPC members have said they’re concerned about the military aid for Israel that would help it prosecute its brutal attacks in Gaza.
“I’m not going to sign a discharge petition with Israel aid, that’s my problem,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) told Axios last week. She also predicted a “significant” number of 103 CPC members in the House would not sign.
It would not be the first time the CPC would have clashed with other Democrats over Ukraine.
In October 2022, only eight months after the war began, 30 CPC members signed a letter to President Joe Biden urging him to push for negotiations between Russia and Ukraine.
“We urge you to pair the military and economic support the United States has provided to Ukraine with a proactive diplomatic push, redoubling efforts to seek a realistic framework for a ceasefire,” the letter said.
The group retracted the letter a day later, after harsh political blowback from fellow Democrats.
While Razom is pushing left-leaning Democrats to sign the petition, another group, Republicans for Ukraine, is pushing GOP members to sign on. The group announced a $260,000 ad campaign to air in Washington and digitally in the districts of 10 Republicans, including those of the “Three Mikes,” a trio of House Republican committee chairmen — Reps. Michael McCaul (Texas), Mike Rogers (Alabama) and Mike Turner (Ohio) — who previously had been vocal about the need to support Ukraine.
At the same time, though, former President Donald Trump has been increasingly clear he has little interest in seeing Ukraine get aid quickly.
At a rally Saturday, Trump repeated his call to male additional aid only in the form of loans and mocked Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy as “one of the greatest salesmen in history.”
“Every time he comes to the country, he walks away with $50 or $60 billion,” he said. (Zelenskyy has been to the U.S. three times since the war started, and the U.S. government has provided around $74 billion in military, humanitarian and economic aid to Ukraine.)
Trump’s remarks came on the heels of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, after visiting Trump in Florida, saying Trump would not give Ukraine “a penny” if he were in power and lack of U.S. aid would end the war. Trump has yet to publicly disavow Orban’s statement.
Johnson has said he will allow an aid bill to the floor, but has not said when or what it will look like.
One idea that’s gained currency with Republicans has been confiscating Russian government assets globally and using them to pay for Ukraine aid. While some are skeptical of how fast the legal fight would take to be resolved, it could quickly free up between $5 billion to $8 billion in the U.S., according to one lawmaker.
“I don’t think there is a long tail to convert those central bank assets, liquid bank assets, to use to benefit Ukraine,” Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.) said on the sidelines of the Republican annual retreat.
Ukrainians like the idea of seizing Russian assets but are cool to Trump’s loan proposal, which has also drawn GOP support. Denys Maliuska, Ukraine’s minister of justice, met with lawmakers and officials in Washington last week.
Maliuska told reporters at a briefing at the Ukrainian embassy last week that changing aid to direct loans would only worsen Ukraine’s war-burdened debt picture, but Ukraine would have little choice if it came to that.
“If there will be a choice between no money or money as a loan, naturally we would go for a loan,” he said. “It’s a matter of life and death for the country and we are not in a situation to be selective.”
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story incorrectly indicated which state Jayapal’s district is in. It is in Washington.