MONTGOMERY — The U.S. House of Representatives will consider additional funding to Ukraine when they return from their Easter recess, according to U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Saks).
Rogers, the House Armed Services Committee chairman, said at a Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce event on Thursday morning the additional funding could come in a supplemental funding package for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan.
"When we get back, in that package there's going to be $60 billion for Ukraine. That's the most contentious leg of this package. It really shouldn't be but it is. There's enormous support for Israel on the Republican side. On the Democrat side, it's not as strong. There's strong support on the left side of the Democratic party for the Palestinians and they don't want to give Israel anything," Rogers said. "There's really no problems with the Indo-Pacific portion of it. Ukraine is the sticker. Here's the problem: we have some ignorant members. They're not stupid. Some of them are stupid. Most of them are just ignorant about the topic."
Funding for Ukraine in its war against Russia has mostly been an intra-party conflict in Congress within the Republican Party. Rogers and others believe the funding is necessary to contain Russia for national security purposes. U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Auburn) and U.S. Rep. Barry Moore (R-Enterprise) have questioned whether the billions in taxpayer dollars would be better spent on domestic needs.
Rogers predicted the additional funding could be used to wind down the Ukraine-Russia conflict.
"We now have a situation where they're locked down," he explained. "Russia has gone through massive casualties as has Ukraine but not as bad as Russia. This has gone on for two years. They can't do this forever and we can't do this forever. What we want to do is make sure we get another tranche of support that shows that we're going to be there along with our NATO allies for at least another year. Russia needs to come to the table and Zelenskyy needs to come to the table and let's reach some type of resolution. Personally, I think that resolution is going to be an armistice just where both sides just quit fighting and say, 'Crimea is in dispute. You claim you own it, I claim I own it… we'll decide later. The Donbass is still in dispute. You claim you own. I claim I own it. We'll fight over it later. We're going to quit fighting right now.' You know who else has done that? South Korea, North Korea, we've never ended that war. It's still an armistice."
"We still have troops on that border because we haven't been fighting over there in 75 years. That's where I think this is headed. It will not get there if we don't provide another tranche of support for Ukraine," Rogers added.
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