The following article was originally published in the Ohio Capital Journal and published on News5Cleveland.com under a content-sharing agreement.
Over the weekend, the U.S. House passed a long-awaited aid package for Ukraine. Lawmakers also approved funding for Israel and Taiwan, not to mention other measures that could wind up sending frozen Russian assets to Ukraine or forcing the sale of TikTok.
But while each proposal had its detractors, the real hold up was Ukrainian aid. Among some Republicans, opposition to U.S. involvement in the war has become a defining principle, and Ohio Republican U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance is perhaps its loudest advocate. With a substantial Ukrainian community outside Cleveland, it has become a campaign issue in Ohio’s closely watched U.S. Senate race. Republican nominee Bernie Moreno, the candidate most closely aligned with Vance, won the Republican primary handily. He will face incumbent U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown in November.
But the Ukraine skeptics have found themselves forced into some awkward positions.
Hardline Republican lawmakers railed about sending money overseas without addressing the U.S. border. So, a bipartisan team of Senators put together a proposal tying the two together. The hardliners then spiked the bill at former President Donald Trump’s urging to avoid giving the Biden administration a victory in an election year.
But those efforts proved fruitless. In the latest round of votes, Ukraine aid wound up passing, this time as a standalone measure. At the same time a border security bill got a majority vote but still failed. Because it was advanced quickly, it needed two-thirds support for passage.
What’s in the bill?
The Ukrainian aid package appropriates $60 billion to help pay for munitions and other assistance. But as many of the proposal’s backers have noted, a substantial share of that money will be staying in the United States. That’s because Defense Department officials are largely relying on existing stockpiles to support Ukraine, and then using the appropriations to replenish domestic supplies.
Nearly $50 billion of the total is defense-related spending, but the proposal includes economic and food support for Ukraine as well as money for Ukrainian refugees.
Ohio’s congressional delegation largely supported the measure, with just three Republican members, Reps. Troy Balderson, Warren Davidson, and Jim Jordan, voting against the proposal.
On Friday, when the House voted to tee up the aid measures for final passage, Vance weighed in on social media.
“To all of our voters demoralized by what the House did today: keep fighting,” he said. “It won’t be easy, but we’re going to save this country.”
Since then, he’s reiterated the argument that U.S. production capacity simply can’t keep up with the demands on artillery shells and missiles.
In a statement, a Moreno spokeswoman explained he “would have supported the Israel aid in the package, but would have opposed the larger bill.”
U.S. Rep. Warren Davidson explained his votes on each one of the proposals in turn, describing his reasoning on the Ukraine measure as, “No mission. No accountability. Not a member of NATO. No achievable plan for victory or peace. No money.”
Davidson added “both major components are foolish” of the measure dealing with frozen Russian assets and a potential TikTok ban. U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, however, emphasized a different piece of legislation wrapped into that bill.
The 21st Century Peace Through Strength Act incorporates Brown’s Fend Off Fentanyl Act, which he emphasized is “endorsed by law enforcement and sanctions the chemical suppliers in China and the Mexican drug cartels bringing fentanyl into communities across Ohio.”
“This bipartisan national security legislation is critical to combating some of the biggest threats this country faces — including fentanyl traffickers, the Chinese Communist Party, Vladimir Putin, and Iran and its terrorist proxies,” Brown said in a statement.
“The Senate must move quickly to pass this legislation,” he added, “because if we don’t, they will be cheering in Tehran, Beijing and Moscow.”
Reactions closer to home
Retired Doctor Taras Mahlay was in Canada when the vote came down. The president of the Cleveland Maidan Association had just flown back from three-week stint in Ukraine working with hospitals and training combat medics.
“It’s a sense of relief,” he explained. “They always saw that light at the end of the tunnel, but that light just got brighter.”
Mahlay described talking to patients and doctors in Ukraine who were remarkably aware of the state of legislation in Congress. Once they learned he was an American physician, they’d begin peppering him with detailed questions about the what’s holding up the legislative process.
After running several support missions to the country, Mahlay said Ukrainians’ fear toward the war has given way to a stubborn determination. Capitulating is not an option for them, he explained, “the question is how many people, how many lives, are lost or ruined?”
He’s also seen improvements in government organization and the delivery of services. The problem is their systems are overwhelmed. Mahlay described how burn units might see a handful of patients before the war, now get “tens if not hundreds in a week.”
“So, the positive thing is they got the people, they got the workers, they got the organization,” he explained. “They just need the money, and they need the supplies and logistics of getting it there.”
Vice President of the United Ukrainian Organizations of Ohio George Jaskiw shared a written statement on behalf of the group thanking the House Speaker Mike Johnson and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, “who together met the challenge of history.” The organization noted 79% of the Ohio delegation, including members from both parties, voted in favor of aid for Ukraine.
“The passage of the appropriations by the House of Representatives,” Jaskiw said, “confirms that our people and representatives understand how geopolitical situations far from our state borders impact our prosperity and security.”
Jaskiw thanked voters who called their representatives, but he also took time to thank The American Jewish Committee for its support as well as organizations representing American communities of Polish and Baltic descent.
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Two years after the large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, Northeast Ohio’s Ukrainian community has been grappling with loss while not giving up hope.
