Biden: "We Can’t Let Putin Win"

The U.S. Senate on Wednesday blocked a bill to provide aid to Ukraine and Israel over a lack of border provisions in the measure, TURAN's Washington correspondent reports.

Senators voted 49-51, failing to reach the 60-vote threshold that would allow the proposal to come up for consideration.

Hours before the vote, the White House called on the Congress to pass President Joe Biden's $106 billion supplemental spending plan, saying that it would make “significant compromises” on border policy in exchange for Ukraine and Israel funding.

“We can’t let Putin win. It’s in our overwhelming national interest, in the international interest of all our friends,” Biden said in a Wednesday address from the Roosevelt Room of the White House.

“This cannot wait,” the president said, blaming his opposition for why the funding hasn’t been approved yet, claiming that they are “holding Ukraine's funding hostage for their extreme partisan border policies": “This has to be a negotiation,” he said.

Biden's speech came just a day after his cabinet members, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken. briefed the Congress, arguing that not passing the supplemental would mainly benefit China, Russia and Iran. State Department's spokesperson Matthew Miller on Thursday called the exchange "frank and candid".

"It is urgent that Congress act to support Ukraine; it is urgent that Congress act to support democracy," Miller told a daily briefing when responding to TURAN's questions.

"We continue to watch the negotiations over things that are unrelated to support for Ukraine.... From our perspective, it is an urgent priority to stand with Ukraine, especially as we enter this difficult winter when we know we will see increased Russian attacks," he added.

In a statement Wednesday night, President Biden's National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Wednesday's vote "does nothing to change the fact that Congress must take action to address these pressing needs—including by providing urgently-needed funding for Ukraine before the end of this year."

"The stakes are too high and the consequences too grave to allow a minority in Congress to hold Ukraine funding hostage over any unrelated issue," he concluded. "The world is watching, and history will judge us. If we walk away and Putin takes Ukraine, he won’t stop there. It’s time for Congress to fund our critical national security priorities. It’s time for Congress to fund Israel’s right to defend itself against terrorists, Ukraine’s right to defend itself against Russian aggression, and the United States to secure our border and stop the flow of fentanyl into the country."