US Senate moves forward $95bn Ukraine and Israel aid package

After many setbacks and much suspense, the Senate appeared on track this week to approve a long-awaited package of wartime funding for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, as Republican opponents staged a filibuster to register their disapproval over a measure they could not block.

The Senate voted 66-33, exceeding a 60-vote margin, to sweep aside the last procedural hurdle and limit debate on the measure to a final 30 hours before a vote on passage that could come on Wednesday.

Senators had worked through the weekend on the roughly $95bn emergency spending package, which cleared a series of procedural hurdles as it moved toward final passage. The chamber voted on the legislation on Monday night following hours of debate and a talking filibuster led by Republican senator Rand Paul and joined by a coterie of Donald Trump’s allies in the chamber.

On Monday, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said the weekend votes demonstrated “beyond doubt that there’s strong support” for advancing the foreign aid package.

Schumer said: “These are the enormously high stakes of the supplemental package: our security, our values, our democracy. It is a down payment for the survival of western democracy and the survival of American values.”

He continued: “The entire world is going to remember what the Senate does in the next few days. Nothing – nothing – would make Putin happier right now than to see Congress waver in its support for Ukraine; nothing would help him more on the battlefield.”

If the bill passes the Senate as expected, the bill would next go to the Republican-led House, where next steps are uncertain. Though a bipartisan majority still supports sending assistance to Ukraine, there is a growing contingent of Republican