House Passes Aid For Ukraine Following Months Of Delay

The House of Representatives approved a $60.8 billion package of aid for the embattled country of Ukraine on Saturday, ending a monthslong attempt by Republicans to leverage the Ukraine money to extract concessions on border security from the White House.

The overwhelmingly bipartisan vote, 311 to 112, was never in doubt even as the path to get to the vote was a long and circuitous one beginning in September of last year.

As in past votes, the final tally was bipartisan, but weighted toward Democrats ― 210 voted in favor, joined by 101 House Republicans. A majority of Republicans, though — 112 — voted against the aid, while no Democrats did.

“This is now up to the American people,” said Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.), a co-chair of the bipartisan Congressional Ukraine Caucus, noting that the money should be enough to get Ukraine past the U.S. elections later this year.

“The decision in November will be a decision for Ukraine and Eastern Europe and NATO. That’s the next turning point.”

The bill is one in a four-part, $95 billion package, which also includes $26.4 billion in military aid for Israel and $8.1 billion for Taiwan and other Asian allies. Another bill in the package also allows for confiscation of official Russian government assets in the U.S. and requires social media app TikTok to divest its U.S. operations from its Chinese owners or face a ban.

It heads now to the Senate, which passed a very similar package without the Russian asset seizure and Tiktok divestiture language, in February. While opponents of the aid to Ukraine are expected to try to delay passage, the Senate vote in February had 70 backers.

President Joe Biden has signaled he will sign the bill once it clears Congress. That would put an end to a