The US House of Representatives approved a budget in the last moment to fund government agencies for 45 days without aid to Ukraine, preventing a government shutdown. However, everything has its price, and in this case, Ukraine was affected as an additional funding was removed from the document.

This decision immediately raised numerous questions.

What this decision by American lawmakers means and how it affects Ukrainian interests is explained in the column by Volodymyr Dubovik, the director of the Center for International Studies Avoiding Bigger Problem: What Removing Aid for Ukraine from the US Budget Means.

The author notes that passing the temporary US budget without mentioning aid to Ukraine is not good.

At the same time, in his opinion, this is not the beginning of the end for Ukraine and is not a catastrophe.

When the moment of truth came, there were only two options, says Volodymyr Dubovyk: the one was implemented and a government shutdown.

"It was precisely the shutdown that representatives of MAGA ("Make America Great Again") were trying to achieve," the expert writes.

Therefore, preventing a last-minute shutdown is a defeat for Trumpist Republicans. It is enough to watch the video of Marjorie Taylor Greene's tantrum yesterday after the crisis was resolved.

According to Dubovyk, a shutdown would have had the potential for a lengthy delay in finding a compromise. He notes that in such a case, making decisions on providing new assistance to Ukraine would have been at risk and would certainly have been significantly postponed.

"It would have weakened the White House, which (despite our occasional criticism) is precisely the decision-making center working to support Ukraine in this situation. The Democratic Party would have been weakened as well," predicts the Center for International Studies director.

So, it is 45 days left, the deadline for developing a full-fledged US budget. It can already start being formed, which is actually what will happen in the coming days and weeks.
According to Volodymyr Dubovyk, opposition to aid to Ukraine in the House of Representatives has doubled compared to the spring of 2022.

Of course, the author acknowledges that this is an extremely negative trend that cannot be ignored. Even more alarming is that according to polls, the level of support for Ukraine in US society is gradually declining.

"However, there is a positive side. Next time, when they vote on a new aid package for Ukraine, we can expect approximately the same numbers as we saw yesterday," the expert notes.

In his opinion, about half of the Republicans in the House of Representatives are against, and half are for. The most important is that all Democrats will vote in favour.

Dubovyk points out that even left-wing guru Bernie Sanders has rushed to declare his full support for a new aid package to Ukraine. Likewise, other representatives of the democratic far-left wing demonstrate their readiness to follow the party line.

As for the Senate, there is no need to worry (at least for now, at least not too much).

"Thus, there are reasons to believe that the events on Capitol Hill will not become too harmful for Ukraine's interests. On the contrary, they prevented the implementation of a more damaging scenario, which would have been a shutdown. Instead, in the medium-term perspective, the chances of adopting new aid packages for Ukraine in the US Congress remain pretty good," summarises the director of the Center for International Studies.