Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is in Ukraine to meet Zelenskyy as US aid hangs in the balance

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is in Ukraine to try to reassure President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other officials that Congress will deliver another round of U.S. aid, even as a package that would provide $60 billion is stalled in the U.S. House.

Schumer’s surprise trip Friday comes at a perilous time for Ukraine. Zelenskyy has said that delays in aid from the U.S. and other Western countries are creating an opening for Russia to make advances on the battlefield, with Ukrainian forces running dangerously low on ammunition and weaponry.

Lawmakers from both parties have traveled to Europe in the last week to promise that the United States will not desert Ukraine and other European allies. Yet the path ahead is far from certain. The Senate passed a $95 billion package to aid Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan last week, but House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has not yet put forward a plan for passing it in the House.

In an interview before his trip, Schumer, D-N.Y., told The Associated Press that he plans to tell Ukrainian officials that “we’re going to win this fight, and America is not abandoning them.”

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