ЦІКАВЕ

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ISLAMABAD — A special Pakistani court Wednesday indicted former Prime Minister Imran Khan on unprecedented and disputed charges of disclosing classified information involving the United States while in office.

The indictment has dealt a fresh blow to the incarcerated popular leader’s chances of contesting national elections in February and returning to power.

Co-defendant Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Khan’s deputy and a former foreign minister, was also indicted for his alleged role in the case. Foreign media representatives were not allowed to cover the legal proceedings, while only a handful of local journalists were given access as usual.

“The charges were read out loudly in the courtroom,” government prosecutor Shah Khawar told Reuters, saying Khan and Qureshi both pleaded not guilty.

Khan’s lawyer, barrister Gohar Khan, disputed the indictment. He told reporters after the hearing that “no charge was framed before us nor signed by the accused.” The trial was being conducted “hastily without ensuring transparency and fairness,” the lawyer alleged.

“Again, justice is being rushed, and whenever it is rushed, it is always crushed,” he added. The defense attorney lamented the trial could not be conducted openly and said most foreign and local media reporters were barred from covering the proceedings in violation of a judicial order.

“The criminal justice system of Pakistan is being used as a tool for political victimization. We have had enough of it. This must stop,” he said.

The court initially indicted Khan and Qureshi in October on the same charges in closed-door proceedings, but a higher court scrapped the process and ordered authorities to ensure an open trial and allow family members and journalists to attend it.

The judicial proceedings are underway inside a prison facility near the capital, Islamabad, for security reasons, the government says.

Legal experts say that a guilty verdict could result in a maximum sentence of 14 years imprisonment or a death sentence.

The lawsuit stems from a classified cable, internally known as a cipher, sent to Islamabad by Pakistan’s ambassador in Washington in March 2022.

Khan alleged the cipher documented the United States’ role in the toppling of his government a month later with the help of his country’s powerful military to punish him for visiting Moscow a day before Russia invaded Ukraine.

Both Washington and the Pakistan military deny the charges.

On Monday, the State Department spokesman again refuted allegations the U.S. had anything to do with Pakistan’s internal affairs.

“The United States does not play any role in choosing the leaders of Pakistan. We engage with the leadership shown by — or the leadership decided by the Pakistani people — and we will continue to engage with the government of Pakistan on all these issues,” Matthew Miller told a news conference in Washington.

Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI, party won the last general elections in 2018, making him the prime minister for the first time.

The charismatic cricketer-turned-politician discussed details of the cipher at party rallies and during media interviews in the run-up to the controversial vote and continued doing so after his ouster.

Khan maintains he was doing so lawfully because he was duty-bound to inform Pakistanis about “the foreign conspiracy” against the government they had elected.

Since his removal from power, the ousted prime minister has faced dozens of lawsuits filed by authorities, which he claims to be a ploy by the military to prevent his comeback to power because of his advocacy for an independent foreign policy for Pakistan, one free from the influence of the United States.

Last August, Khan was convicted in a graft case and sentenced to three years in jail. A superior court later suspended his sentence and ordered the government to release him on bail, but authorities refused, citing the cipher and other lawsuits against him.

Unless his conviction is overturned, the former prime minister remains disqualified from running in the upcoming elections or leading the PTI under election laws.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed controversial military tribunals to resume trials of more than 100 Imran Khan supporters on charges of attacking army properties during anti-government protests last May.

The judicial order came less than two months after a five-judge panel of the top court ruled against trying civilians in military courts. Khan and his party maintain the military trials of political activists are a violation of the constitution and are meant to scare their candidates away from the upcoming polls.

The military has staged three coups against elected prime ministers since Pakistan gained independence from Britain in 1947, and it ruled the country for more than three decades.

Pakistani politicians, including former prime ministers, say the unconstitutional military interventions have encouraged generals to influence policymaking significantly, even when not in power.
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Washington — President Joe Biden is taking a more active role in Senate negotiations over changes to the immigration system that Republicans are demanding in exchange for providing money to Ukraine in its fight against Russia and Israel for the war with Hamas.

The Democratic president has said he is willing to make “significant compromises on the border” as Republicans block the wartime aid in Congress. The White House is expected to get more involved in talks this week as the impasse over changes to border policy has deepened and the funds remaining for Ukraine have dwindled.

“It’s time to cut a deal that both sides can agree to,” Biden’s budget director, Shalanda Young, said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

Republicans say the record numbers of migrants crossing the southern border pose a security threat because authorities cannot adequately screen all the migrants and that those who enter the United States are straining the country’s resources. GOP lawmakers also say they cannot justify to their constituents sending billions of dollars to other countries, even in a time of war, while failing to address the border at home.

Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, who is leading the negotiations, pointed to the surge of people entering the U.S. from Mexico and said “it is literally spiraling out of control.”

“All we’re trying to do is to say what tools are needed to be able to get this back in control, so we don’t have the chaos on our southern border,” Lankford said on CBS.

But many immigration advocates, including some Democrats, say some of the changes being proposed would gut protections for people who desperately need help and would not really ease the chaos at the border.

Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, the top Democratic bargainer, said the White House would take a more active role in the talks. But he also panned Republican policy demands so far as “unreasonable.”

“We don’t want to shut off the United States of America to people who are coming here to be rescued from dangerous, miserable circumstances, in which their life is in jeopardy. The best of America is that you can come here to be rescued from terror and torture,” Murphy said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Much of the negotiating is taking place in private, but some of the issues under discussion are known: asylum standards, humanitarian parole and fast-track deportation authority, among others.

A look at what they are and what might happen if there are changes:

Humanitarian parole

Using humanitarian parole, the U.S. government can let people into the country by essentially bypassing the regular immigration process. This power is supposed to be used on a case-by-case basis for “urgent humanitarian reasons” or “significant public benefit.” Migrants are usually admitted for a pre-determined period and there’s no path toward U.S. citizenship.

Over the years, administrations, both Democratic and Republican, have used humanitarian parole to admit people into the U.S. and help groups of people from all over the world. It’s been used to admit people from Hungary in the 1950s, from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos during the latter half of the 1970s, and Iraqi Kurds who had worked with the U.S. in the mid-1990s, according to research by the Cato Institute.

Under Biden, the U.S. has relied heavily on humanitarian parole. The U.S. airlifted nearly 80,000 Afghans from Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, and brought them to the U.S. after the Taliban takeover. The U.S. has admitted tens of thousands of Ukrainians who fled after the Russian invasion.

In January the Democratic administration announced a plan to admit 30,000 people a month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela via humanitarian parole, provided those migrants had a financial sponsor and flew to the U.S. instead of going to the U.S.-Mexico border for entry.

The latest U.S. government figures show that nearly 270,000 people had been admitted into the country through October under that program. Separately, 324,000 people have gotten appointments through a mobile app called CBP One that is used to grant parole to people at land crossings with Mexico.

Republicans have described the programs as essentially an end run around Congress by letting in large numbers of people who otherwise would have no path to be admitted. Texas sued the administration to stop the program aimed at Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans.

What might change with asylum?

Asylum is a type of protection that allows a migrant to stay in the U..S. and have a path to American citizenship. To qualify for asylum, someone has to demonstrate fear of persecution back home due to a fairly specific set of criteria: race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinions. Asylum-seekers must be on U.S. soil when they ask for this protection.

They generally go through an initial screening called a credible fear interview. If they are determined to have a chance of getting asylum, they are allowed to stay in the U.S. to pursue their case in immigration court. That process can take years. In the meantime, asylum-seekers can start to work, get married, have children and create a life.

Critics say the problem is that most people do not end up getting asylum when their case finally makes it to immigration court. But they say migrants know that if they claim asylum, they essentially will be allowed to stay in America for years.

“People aren’t necessarily coming to apply for asylum as much to access that asylum adjudication process,” said Andrew Arthur, a former immigration court judge and fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for less immigration in the U.S.

Some of what lawmakers are discussing would raise the bar that migrants need to meet during that initial credible fear interview. Those who do not meet it would be sent home.

But Paul Schmidt, a retired immigration court judge who blogs about immigration court issues, said the credible fear interview was never intended to be so tough. Migrants are doing the interview soon after arriving at the border from an often arduous and traumatizing journey, he said. Schmidt said the interview is more of an “initial screening” to weed out those with frivolous asylum claims.

Schmidt also questioned the argument that most migrants fail their final asylum screening. He said some immigration judges apply overly restrictive standards and that the system is so backlogged that it is hard to know exactly what the most recent and reliable statistics are.

What is expedited removal?

Expedited removal, created in 1996 by Congress, basically allows low-level immigration officers, as opposed to an immigration judge, to quickly deport certain immigrants. It was not widely used until 2004 and generally has been used to deport people apprehended within 100 miles of the Mexican or Canadian border and within two weeks of their arrival.

Defenders say it relieves the burden on the backlogged immigration courts. Immigration advocates say its use is prone to errors and does not give migrants enough protections, such as having a lawyer help them argue their case. As president, Republican Donald Trump pushed to expand this fast-track deportation policy nationwide and for longer periods of time. Opponents sued and that expansion never happened.

What might these changes do?

Much of the disagreement over these proposed changes comes down to whether people think deterrence works.

Arthur, the former immigration court judge, thinks it does. He said changes to the credible fear asylum standards and restrictions on the use of humanitarian parole would be a “game changer.” He said it would be a “costly endeavor” as the government would have to detain and deport many more migrants than today. But, he argued, eventually the numbers of people arriving would drop.

But others, like Schmidt, the retired immigration court judge, say migrants are so desperate, they will come anyway and make dangerous journeys to evade Border Patrol.

“Desperate people do desperate things,” he said.
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The White House — In a sign that the United States is getting increasingly concerned over the scale of civilian casualties from Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, President Joe Biden delivered a public rebuke to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, even as he maintains staunch support for Israel.

“We have made it clear to the Israelis, and they are aware that … the safety of innocent Palestinians is still a great concern. And so, the actions they’re taking must be consistent with attempting to do everything possible to prevent innocent Palestinian civilians from being hurt, murdered, killed, lost, etc,,” Biden said at a press conference during Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit to the White House.

Zelenskyy is in the U.S. to lobby for military and economic aid for his country’s fight against Russia’s invasion. Aid to Ukraine and Israel are being blocked by Republican lawmakers who are demanding concessions on U.S. immigration policy.

Biden has grown more vocal with his public criticism of Israel’s military campaign that is now into its third month. Speaking off-camera to Democratic donors for his 2024 reelection bid earlier Tuesday, Biden said Israel is starting to lose support around the world because of its “indiscriminate bombings,” according to a White House transcript of the event.

Biden’s comment stands in contrast to those of White House officials who say Israel has taken measures to make their strikes more targeted to avoid civilian deaths.

“He’s [Netanyahu] a good friend, but I think he has to change. … This government in Israel is making it very difficult for him to move,” Biden said.

The president singled out Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s far-right national security minister.

“Ben-Gvir and company and the new folks, they don’t want anything remotely approaching a two-state solution,” he said. “They not only want to have retribution, which they should for what the Palestinians — Hamas — did, but against all Palestinians.”

He suggested Netanyahu will need to empower the Palestinian Authority to become a partner in the peace process toward the two-state solution, which Israeli hard-liners oppose.

“You cannot say there’s no Palestinian state at all in the future. And that’s going to be the hard part,” Biden said, even as he underscored that the U.S. will not do “a damn thing other than protect Israel in the process.”

Biden said national security adviser Jake Sullivan will travel to the region this week and meet with the Israeli war Cabinet to emphasize U.S. commitment to Israel, as well as the need to protect civilian life and ensure more humanitarian assistance into Gaza.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will also travel to the region to step up international efforts to protect the free flow of commerce through the Red Sea that has been disrupted by Iran-backed Houthi militants attacking vessels heading into Israel.

Cease-fire resolution

Biden’s remarks came amid an overwhelming vote at the United Nations General Assembly supporting a cease-fire in Gaza that further isolates Washington. The vote in the 193-member world body was 153 in favor, 10 against and 23 abstentions.

“Our duty is to try to save the lives who are still alive by having this resolution adopted and by forcing Israel to comply with it. And those who are shielding Israel to comply with the global consensus,” said Riyad Mansour, Palestinian permanent observer to the United Nations.”

The vote followed a similar resolution in the U.N. Security Council last week that failed due to a U.S. veto. There are no vetoes in the General Assembly.

While General Assembly resolutions are nonbinding, they carry political weight. U.N. member states are shaping “the narrative that the U.S. is standing alone in opposing the cease-fire,” and “looking for every means possible to create a sense of moral pressure on the U.S. to change its posture,” said Richard Gowan, U.N. director of the International Crisis Group.

“The Arab group at the U.N. wants to make the Americans nervous,” he told VOA. “It wants to send the message that America is losing international goodwill because of its stance.”

Biden’s critics say his unwavering support to Israel jeopardizes Washington’s interests.

The administration is inflicting “deep damage and lasting damage” to its ties with key countries beyond the Middle East, said Josh Paul, a former U.S. diplomat who resigned in protest over U.S. policy of sending arms to Israel without oversight.

“But also, where we are arguing, for example, in the United Nations to gain the support of the Global South for our just condemnation of Russia’s abhorrent invasion of Ukraine,” Paul told VOA. “We are also going to lose votes if we are seen to be hypocritical, if we’re seen to be walking away from our values.”

Administration officials and other supporters of Israel say they support humanitarian pauses but that a cease-fire would allow Hamas, a U.S.-designated terror organization, to regroup and plan future attacks.

A cease-fire allows Hamas to have a legitimacy that it hasn’t earned, said Julie Rayman, managing director of policy and political affairs at the American Jewish Committee.

“It’s giving trust to terrorist leaders who have proven unequivocally that they are not trustworthy,” she told VOA.

Hamas fighters stormed from the Gaza Strip into nearby Israeli towns on October 7, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 200 hostages. Gaza health officials say Israel’s military response has displaced at least 2 million people and killed more than 18,000 in the bloodiest campaign of the decadeslong Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

VOA’s United Nations correspondent Margaret Besheer contributed to this report.
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The UN says Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has driven more than 5 million people from their homes, many of them older adults. Now, some are finding safe places to live thanks to the American charity To Ukraine With Love and a community called Miracle Village. Lesia Bakalets reports from the development of 107 apartments outside Kyiv.
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U.S. lawmakers called for a tougher stance against Iran Tuesday as the conflict between Israel and Hamas threatens to expand across the Middle East. Iranian proxies have launched more than 90 attacks against U.S. forces since October 17th, 10 days after the Hamas terror attack on Israel. Some Republican lawmakers are demanding that the Biden administration impose stricter sanctions on the Islamic Republic. VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson has more.
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The White House — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, alongside President Joe Biden, on Tuesday forcefully, evocatively, and emotionally pressed his case for $61 billion in new U.S. aid to help his country fight off Russia’s invasion – a prospect that hangs in the balance as Congress decides on the matter.

Zelenskyy, who has met in person with Biden multiple times since the Russian invasion in early 2022, rejected the notion that his nation would cede territory to the Russians after nearly two years of brutal warfare.

“That’s insane, to be honest,” he said.

He added: “I don’t know whose idea it is, but I have a question to these people: if they are ready to give up their children to terrorists. I think not.”

Biden also pressed for Ukrainian victory and seemed to push back against starting negotiations with Moscow.

“We need to ensure Putin continues to fail in Ukraine and Ukraine to succeed,” he said. “And the best way for that to do that is to pass the supplemental” funding request.

But the U.S. Congress, which signs the checks, is not yet convinced. Earlier Tuesday, Zelenskyy met with lawmakers in an attempt to persuade them. 

Republicans say they want to see “proper oversight” of the funding, and they also want to see “a clear articulation of strategy.”

Biden, meanwhile, accused Republicans of playing into Moscow’s hands by failing to pass the aid package.

“The host of a Kremlin-run show said, ‘Well done, Republicans. That’s good for us,’” he said, adding: “If you’re being celebrated by Russian propagandists, it might be time to rethink what you’re doing. History will judge harshly those who turn their back on freedom’s cause.”

Russia’s Foreign Ministry accused Zelenskyy of “cadging” – slang meaning to beg for something undeserved – and said he is an American puppet.

But U.S. taxpayers are showing signs of Ukraine fatigue, and some Republicans question why about a third of U.S. money goes not toward weapons, but government assistance.

John Jameson, a mine-clearing campaigner who recently visited the country, said Ukraine needs every penny.

“The deminers were working while we heard the sound of artillery going on,” he told VOA, on Zoom. “And they’re doing that because they know it’s essential for them to be able to start farming and producing and going back to work now so they can live so they can not only just to fight the war but so they can live but no, we can’t wait until the fighting is over.”

But when will it end? Analysts say this may take more than a year – and question whether Ukraine’s supporters are funding it enough, considering how well this small army has done against a much larger foe.

“They’ve become, in some ways, victims of their own success,” said Dalibor Rohac, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. “I don’t think we should be sort of reasonably asking Ukrainians to do more, especially given the almost homeopathic nature of Western assistance. When you think about the amounts of munitions that are being delivered – the miniscule amounts of long range artillery, precision artillery, air defenses, etc, etc, that are being delivered to Ukraine. I think they are making a really impressive use of very limited resources that are given to them, provided to them, against a much larger adversary.”

This urgent discussion comes as Biden on Tuesday announced another $200 million in military aid for Ukraine.

Speaking Monday at the National Defense University in Washington, Zelenskyy said Ukraine needs to “win the sky,” as he advocated for missiles, drones and jets to expand the Ukrainian military’s air defenses.

“It’s crucial that politicians don’t even try to betray the soldiers because, just like weapons are needed for their defense, freedom always requires unity,” Zelenskyy said.

Biden has asked Congress for a $110 billion package of wartime funding for Ukraine and Israel, along with other national security priorities. Ukraine would get more than $61 billion of that.

But Republicans in the U.S. Senate have balked, saying major U.S. border security changes are needed. 

Some Republicans are asking for the immediate deportation of migrants who entered the country illegally, stripping them of a chance to seek U.S. asylum.

They have also called for greatly scaling back Biden administration programs that have allowed hundreds of thousands of migrants to enter the U.S. lawfully. 

The U.S. has already provided Ukraine $111 billion for its fight against Russia’s 2022 invasion. 

In his speech Monday, Zelenskyy emphasized the importance of defeating Russia in Ukraine because if Russia wins in Ukraine, he said, Russian President Vladimir Putin will not stop there. 

“His [Putin’s] weapon against you right now is propaganda and disinformation. But if he sees a chance, he’ll go further,” he said. “Now, he’s shifting Russia’s economy and society [onto] what he calls ‘war tracks.’”

The Ukrainian president said that, so far, Ukrainian forces have taken back 50% of the territory they lost to Russia and pointed to the perseverance of Ukrainian “warriors” on the battleground. 

“Right now, amid fierce battles, our soldiers are holding positions on the front and preparing for further actions, and we haven’t let Russia score any victory this year,” Zelenskyy said. 

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin also spoke at the National Defense University event, saying U.S. support in Ukraine is unshakeable.

“If we do not stand up [to] the Kremlin’s aggression today, if we do not deter other would-be aggressors, we will only invite more aggression, more bloodshed and more chaos,” Austin said. 

IMF funding 

The International Monetary Fund’s executive board on Monday approved a $900 million disbursement for Ukraine as part of an ongoing, long-term loan.

“Thank you for supporting Ukraine and celebrating the successes of our country and our people,” Zelenskyy said on his Telegram channel after his meeting with IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva Monday in Washington.

Georgieva said Ukraine’s economy had proven resilient despite Russia’s invasion in February 2022. 

“Looking ahead, whereas the recovery is expected to continue, the outlook has significant risks stemming mainly from the exceptionally high war-related uncertainty,” Georgieva said in a statement, according to Reuters. “It is also critical that external financing on concessional terms continue on a timely and predictable basis.”

The IMF on Monday asked Ukraine to conduct an “ambitious” external commercial debt restructuring in the first half of 2024 to help restore debt sustainability. 

Russian submarines 

In a televised ceremony Monday, Putin inspected two nuclear submarines — the Krasnoyarsk and Emperor Alexander III — at the Sevmash shipbuilding yard in the arctic port of Severodvinsk.  

The Emperor Alexander III is part of Russia’s new Borei [Arctic Wind] class of nuclear submarines, the first new generation Russia has launched since the Cold War.

Last month, the Russian Defense Ministry said the vessel had successfully tested a nuclear-capable Bulava intercontinental ballistic missile. 

Security analysts say nuclear arms have assumed a greater importance in Putin’s thinking and rhetoric since the start of the Ukraine conflict, where his conventional forces are locked in a grinding war of attrition with no end in sight.

VOA’s Carla Babb contributed to this report.  Some information came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. 
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washington — Unabated anger and tensions over the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas could spill over into the holiday season in the United States, potentially putting large public gatherings at risk, according to law enforcement and homeland security officials.

The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security late Tuesday issued a public service announcement, warning of a heightened threat to holiday or faith-based events and New Year’s Eve celebrations in the coming weeks.

The announcement further warned of potential dangers to protests, rallies and other First Amendment-protected events.

“Ongoing tensions related to the conflict between Israel and Hamas likely heighten the threat of lone actor violence targeting large public gatherings throughout the winter,” the statement said. “These targets likely remain attractive to lone actors inspired by a range of ideologies due to their accessibility and symbolic nature.”

According to the FBI and DHS, there is no specific or credible intelligence to suggest an attack is in the works, but the statement warns there has been “a spike in reporting on potential hate crimes or other criminal violations” since the October 7 Hamas terror attack in Israel that killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, with some 240 people taken hostage.

The Israeli military response has since displaced an estimated 2 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, where the Hamas-run Health Ministry says nearly 18,000 people have been killed, most of them women and children.

The FBI and DHS warning said any escalation of the conflict could “further exacerbate the threat of violence.”

Just last week, DHS issued a new guide to help faith-based organizations, including churches, synagogues and mosques, take steps to better secure their facilities and their congregations.

The same day, FBI Director Christopher Wray told U.S. lawmakers that the bureau’s hate crime caseload had spiked by 60% since October, with the majority of threats targeting the Jewish community.

The just-released public service announcement noted both the FBI and DHS have also seen a jump in hoax bomb threats and active shooter threats aimed at synagogues “likely intended to disrupt services and intimidate congregants.”

The new advisory updates a previous warning from October 25.

U.S. homeland security officials have previously said the country has been mired for more than a year now in a “heightened threat environment,” with the biggest threat coming from U.S.-based extremists motivated by “enduring racial, ethnic, religious and anti-government ideologies.”
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Washington — Newly declassified U.S. intelligence indicates Russia has suffered from some staggering losses as a result of its nearly two-year-old invasion of Ukraine, including major setbacks during its latest offensive.

The assessment, parts of which were shared with VOA, estimates more than 13,000 Russian forces have been killed or wounded since Moscow launched its October offensive along the Avdiivka-Novopavlivka axis in eastern Ukraine.

U.S. intelligence also believes Ukraine’s military has destroyed or immobilized more than 220 Russian combat vehicles, the equivalent of six battalions’ worth of vehicles.

“Russia’s attempt at an offensive has resulted in no strategic gains,” National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson told VOA in a statement, describing the Russian losses as “severe.” 

“But Russia is determined to press forward,” she added. “Russia seems to believe that a military deadlock through the winter will drain Western support for Ukraine and ultimately give Russia the advantage despite Russian losses and persistent shortages of trained personnel, munitions, and equipment.”

The decision to declassify the latest intelligence Tuesday comes as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is in Washington, visiting with U.S. lawmakers and with U.S. President Joe Biden.

During a speech at the National Defense University in Washington on Monday, Zelenskyy pleaded with U.S. lawmakers “not to betray” Ukraine’s forces and provide more weapons and support, warning Moscow sees Ukraine as “just a stepping-stone.”

“We know what to do,” he said. “You can count on Ukraine, and we hope just as much to be able to count on you.”

The White House has been pushing U.S. lawmakers to approve more than $61 billion in supplemental funding for Kyiv before the end of the year.

But some lawmakers have balked, with some Republicans insisting any deal to provide more money to Ukraine must also include provisions to strengthen U.S. immigration policies and security along the U.S. southern border with Mexico.

White House officials, however, point to the latest declassified intelligence to argue that funding for Ukraine simply cannot wait.

“This shows how Ukraine is having success stopping Russian forces, but Putin is continuing to order his troops forward,” a senior administration official told VOA, speaking on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the intelligence and the political negotiations.

“It’s critical we continue to support Ukraine and make sure they have what they need to defend themselves,” the official added.

Top U.S. military and intelligence officials have previously said Russia’s losses in Ukraine have set its military back by as much as five to ten years.

Still, the Pentagon warned Monday a failure to back Ukraine will send Russian President Vladimir Putin the wrong message.

“Despite his isolation, Putin still believes that he can outlast Ukraine, and that he can outlast America,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Monday, speaking with Zelenskyy at the National Defense University.  “If we do not stand up to the Kremlin’s aggression today, if we do not deter other would-be aggressors, we will only invite more aggression, more bloodshed, and more chaos.”

Patsy Widakuswara contributed to this report.
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