US Senate passes resolution supporting Ukraine amid invasion fears

The US Senate on February 17 night passed a resolution supporting Kyiv and urging President Biden to "impose significant costs” if Russia invaded Ukraine, reported from The Hill.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), who sponsored the resolution with Portman, added that "by overwhelmingly voting in favor of this resolution, today the Senate spoke with one voice.”

"Democrats and Republicans are united and committed to supporting our Ukrainian partners against the Kremlin’s escalating violence and aggression. Putin will make a gross miscalculation and suffer the full weight of the US Congress if he decides to further invade Ukraine,” Shaheen said.

The Senate’s passage of the resolution, which was co-sponsored by roughly 40 senators, comes after Senate leadership and members of top committees released a joint statement saying that if Putin escalated "his ongoing assault on Ukraine’s sovereignty, Russia must be made to pay a severe price."

"This was a very significant resolution that we passed. It was led by Senators Shaheen and Portman and sends a very strong message to Mr. Putin that the United States Senate, Democrats and Republicans of all different ideologies, are united in defending Ukraine in the ways that the administration sees fit," Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said after the Senate passed the resolution on February 17 night.

Sens. James Risch (R-Idaho) and Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), the top Republican and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, respectively, led a bipartisan group that worked for weeks on a potential piece of legislation. But they warned last week that they had hit a wall with disagreements related to secondary sanctions on Russia's banks, which could have broader impacts across Europe, and what to do about the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

www.anews.az