Five senators each brought their own resolution supporting Ukraine to a vote on 5 March evening. However, all these resolutions were blocked by Republican senators, Voice of America reports citing representatives from the offices of the senators who authored these documents.
Senate staff also clarified that the consideration of these resolutions was not entered into the voting record, so there is no exact data on who voted “for” and who voted “against.”
Each resolution called for “condemning Vladimir Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine and reaffirming the United States’ support for Ukraine and Western democracy.”
The resolutions were authored by Democratic senators Michael Bennet, Chris Van Hollen, Dick Durbin, Richard Blumenthal, and Peter Welch. They were also joined by independent Senator Bernie Sanders, who traditionally works in coalition with Democrats on many bills, according to VoA.
Sanders stated on the Senate floor that If Putin abandons his unprecedented attempts to conquer a neighboring country, “the war would end today” and the killings could stop right now.
Senate Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer also spoke in support of these resolutions. On the Senate floor, he emphasized that these resolutions “reaffirm basic bipartisan principles” that both Democrats and Republicans should support.
Republican Senator Jim Risch, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who until recently was a Ukraine supporter, opposed the resolutions, stating that while he personally agreed entirely with their sentiment and believed no one would disagree with their content, he viewed them as ineffective since they were merely resolutions, not bills.
Despite the US’ separate negotiations with Russia and planned talks with Ukraine without the EU’s input, the Foreign Relations Committee chairman claimed that negotiations between Ukraine, the US, Europe, and Russia are currently underway. According to him, careless steps such as adopting these resolutions could negatively impact the fragile process.
Risch emphasized that although everyone desires peace in Ukraine, only President Trump allegedly could realistically achieve this, adding that Trump was ostensibly making significant efforts toward that goal. He concluded by insisting that the public only saw “the tip of the iceberg,” and was unaware of the true complexity of the negotiations.
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