Republicans Offer Kyiv Reassurance on Aid Package. Do they Know Something We Don't?

Republicans Offer Kyiv Reassurance on Aid Package. Do they Know Something We Don’t?

Posted: February 29th, 2024

By Brian Bonner

Brian Bonner led the Kyiv Post, Ukraine's English-language newspaper, from 2008-2021, but spent most of his career as a journalist covering international, national and local news for the St. Paul Pioneer Press in Minnesota from 1983-2007. Now, besides working for The Cipher Brief, he hosts a weekly English-language podcast on Hromadske (Public) Radio in Kyiv.

SUBSCRIBER+EXCLUSIVE REPORTING — Four years ago, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Kyiv to reassure president Volodymyr Zelensky that the U.S. would stand by Ukraine after Russia illegally annexed Crimea in the eastern part of the country. Last week, Pompeo was back.

In fact, the former Secretary under former President Donald Trump has visited Ukraine multiple times since that 2020 meeting with Zelensky. But this time, Pompeo told an interviewer in the capital Kyiv, that he believes the U.S. will once again support Ukraine by passing a $60B aid package that – at the urging of former president Trump – is currently being held up by hard-right Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives.

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