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      Republicans erupt into open warfare over Ukraine aid package vote

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      Republican divisions over military support for Ukraine were long simmering. Now, before Saturday’s extraordinary vote in Congress on a foreign aid package, they have erupted into open warfare – a conflict that the vote itself is unlikely to contain.Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House of Representatives, triggered an all-out split in his own party’s ranks last week by finally agreeing, after months of stalling, to a floor vote on the $95bn foreign aid programme. Passed by the Senate in February, it contained about $60bn for Ukraine, $14bn for Israel, and a smaller amount for Taiwan and other Pacific allies.Johnson’s decision to finally bring the package to a vote made a highly symbolic break with the GOP’s far right, the people who engineered his elevation to the speaker’s chair last October after toppling his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy. These Republican rightwingers – reflecting the affinity of their political idol, the former president Donald Trump, for the Russian president, Vladimir Putin – have grown openly hostile to Ukraine’s cause.Speaking from the Capitol on Thursday, Johnson made no apologies for antagonising them, telling C-SPAN that providing aid to Ukraine was “critically important” and “the right thing” despite the potential power of his opponents to bring him down in yet another internal party coup.“I really believe the intel and the briefings that we’ve gotten,” Johnson said. “I believe that Xi and Vladimir Putin and Iran really are an axis of evil. I think they are in coordination on this. I think that Vladimir Putin would continue to march through Europe.“I am going to allow an opportunity for every single member of the House to vote their conscience and their will,” he said, adding: “I’m willing to take a personal risk for that, because we have to do the right thing. And history will judge us.”The backlash was fierce. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the outspoken Georgia representative, immediately filed a resolution demanding Johnson’s removal, called the bill a “sham”.“I don’t care if the speaker’s office becomes a revolving door,” Taylor Greene told Steve Bannon, Trump’s former adviser, on his War Room channel. “The days are over of the old Republican party that wants to fund foreign wars and murder people in foreign lands while they stab the American people in their face and refuse to protect Americans and fix our problems.”Branded “Moscow Marjorie” by former Republican representative Ken Buck, who said she gets her talking points from the Kremlin, Taylor Greene went further by accusing Ukraine of waging “a war against Christianity”.“The Ukrainian government is attacking Christians, the Ukrainian government is executing priests,” she said. “Russia is not doing that. They’re not attacking Christianity.” (In fact, according to figures from the Institute for Religious Freedom, a Ukrainian group, at least 630 religious sites had been damaged or looted in Russia’s invasion by December last year.)Taylor Greene’s move to oust Johnson was supported by the Kentucky representative Thomas Massie, who also backed an ultimately successful attempt to remove a previous Republican speaker, John Boehner, nearly a decade ago.Other Republican rightwingers are unhappy, too, though they have so far stopped short of moving to topple the speaker. That might be because Trump, the party’s presumptive nominee for president who is currently on trial on fraud charges relating to paying hush money to keep American voters from learning about his alleged affair with an adult film star, has backed Johnson.So have all four Republican chairs of the key House committees – foreign affairs, intelligence, armed services and appropriations – a position driven by the sheer urgency of Ukraine’s predicament.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMore than two years into the war, Ukraine has a catalogue of absolutely critical military requirements, including artillery shells, air defence missiles and deep-strike rockets.Johnson has tried to dilute the internal opposition by unbundling the aid package into four separate bills, with each to be voted on individually – apparently in the hope that the chance to vote against the bits they dislike (such as Ukraine) while backing causes more palatable to them (such as Israel) will placate the implacable.Although the Republicans’ house majority is now whittled down to two, Democrats – who mostly back funding Ukraine’s defense against the Russian invasion – have pledged to support Johnson’s bills. That could mean Ukraine would finally get the US assistance it has so fervently hoped for: roughly $60bn in assistance (much of which would be to replenish weapons stocks provided by the US), including $10bn to be given in the form of a loan, a concept Trump has apparently endorsed.Predictably, Democrats are gloating. Jared Moskowitz, a Democratic representative from Florida, moved an amendment to the Ukraine bill calling for Taylor Greene’s office in the Cannon building to be renamed the Neville Chamberlain room – in homage to the pre-second world war British prime minister notorious for appeasing Hitler – and asking she be appointed “Vladimir Putin’s special envoy to the US”.While Saturday’s vote may settle the Ukraine issue for now, Republican divisions will probably rumble on, according to Kyle Kondik of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.“The GOP split on Ukraine would remain, but the need for action (or inaction) in the short term would be solved,” he said.“Johnson may be well-positioned to survive as speaker because Democrats may provide him some votes. But the GOP conference is so divided (and so small in its majority) that I’m sure something else will come along to cause more turbulence.” More

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      US House pushes ahead with $95bn foreign aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan

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      The US House pushed ahead on Friday with a $95bn foreign aid package for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and humanitarian support after Democrats came to the rescue of Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker.A coalition of lawmakers helped the legislation clear a procedural hurdle to reach final votes this weekend, as Friday morning’s vote followed a rare move late on Thursday for a House committee that normally votes along party lines.The dramatic action took place on Capitol Hill on Thursday night in order to save the Ukraine aid legislation from rightwing rebels.On Friday morning Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, warned that if US aid was further delayed for Ukraine “there is a real risk it will arrive too late” to help the grinding resistance to Russia’s invasion.Then the House voted on the procedure agreed the night before, again producing a seldom-seen outcome in the typically hyper-partisan chamber, with Democrats helping Johnson’s plan advance by 316 votes to 94.Johnson now looks set to push forward this weekend on the package for Kyiv, Israel, Taiwan and other allies, which had stalled in the House after passing the Senate. This despite a firestorm of protest from hardline Republicans that could lead to an attempt to oust him.The House is expected to vote on Saturday on the aid legislation that provides $61bn for the conflict in Ukraine, including $23bn to replenish US weapons, $26bn for Israel, including $9.1bn for humanitarian needs, and $8.12bn for the Indo-Pacific. If passed, it would then go back to the Senate.The aid legislation is the latest in a series of must-pass bipartisan measures that Johnson has helped shepherd through Congress, including two huge spending bills and a controversial reauthorization of federal surveillance programs.Republicans hold a narrow House majority, 218-213 , a margin so scant that Mike Gallagher is postponing his mid-session retirement, originally set for Friday, so the Republican representative can be present to vote for the bill.On Thursday night, the four Democrats on the House rules committee voted with five Republicans to advance the aid package that Johnson has devised, agreeing procedures.The rules committee would normally be a safely partisan affair for the Republican majority, but Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Ralph Norman of South Carolina and Chip Roy of Texas, all on the far right, are voting against advancing the bill, prompting Democrats to step in to save it.Kevin McCarthy, the former speaker, put them on the committee to placate the far-right contingent of his caucus in the House.Johnson has won praise from Republican centrists and even Democrats by taking the line that he is doing “the right thing” on the aid legislation even if it brings challenges to his position from his own party, which has the power very easily to force a vote to oust him.Johnson got a boost from Donald Trump last week when they held an event together at the former president’s residence in Florida and, again, on Thursday when Trump made a post on social media that did not actively oppose aid for Ukraine.Trump appeared to warm to the idea after having dinner with Andrzej Duda, Poland’s far-right president, in New York on Tuesday, with Poland very wary about the power of an emboldened neighbor Russia to threaten eastern Europe.Friday’s vote was a victory for the strategy Johnson set in motion this week after he agonized for two months over the aid legislation. He had to spend the past 24 hours making the rounds on conservative media working to salvage support.The current package is similar to a measure that passed the Democratic-majority Senate in February and which Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer, Mitch McConnell and Hakeem Jeffries had been pushing for a House vote since then.In addition to the aid for allies, the package includes a provision to transfer frozen Russian assets to Ukraine, and sanctions targeting Hamas and Iran – and to force China’s ByteDance to sell social media platform TikTok or face a ban in the US.Schumer on Friday told senators to be prepared to return this weekend if the package passes the House and goes back to the Senate. If passed by the upper chamber, it must go to the US president’s desk before becoming law.Some conservative lawmakers oppose more aid to Ukraine, while some progressive Democrats are reluctant on more Israel aid, given the slaughter and famine in Gaza.Reuters and the Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      Ukraine Aid Bill Clears Critical Hurdle in the House as Democrats Supply the Votes

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      Democrats stepped in to support bringing the aid package to the floor, in a remarkable breach of custom on a key vote that paved the way for its passage.The House took a critical step on Friday toward approving a long-stalled package of aid to Ukraine, Israel and other American allies, as Democrats supplied the crucial votes to push the legislation past Republican opposition so that it could be considered on the floor.The 316-94 vote cleared the way for the House to bring up the aid package, teeing up separate votes on Saturday on each of its parts. But passage of those measures, each of which enjoys bipartisan support from different coalitions, was not in doubt, making Friday’s action the key indicator that the legislation will have the backing needed to prevail.The rule for considering the bill — historically a straight party-line vote — passed with more Democratic than Republican support, but it also won a majority of G.O.P. votes, making it clear that despite a pocket of deep resistance from the far right, there is broad bipartisan backing for the $95.3 billion package.The vote was an enormous victory in the long effort to fund to Ukraine as it battles against Russian aggression, a major priority of President Biden that has met with bitter resistance from the right. It was a triumph against the forces of isolationism within the G.O.P. and a major moment of bipartisan consensus in a Congress that for the past year has been mostly defined by its dysfunction.But it came only after Speaker Mike Johnson, who put his own job on the line to push through the plan over his party’s objections, was forced to turn to Democrats in a significant breach of custom in the House, further imperiling his position even as he paved the way for the legislation to be voted on and approved.On the House floor, Democrats held back their votes until it was clear there was not enough Republican support for the measure to pass without their backing, and then their “yes” votes began pouring in. Ultimately, 165 Democrats voted for the measure, more than the 149 Republicans who supported it.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Germany Arrests 2 Men Suspected of Spying for Russia

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      The two men, dual citizens of both countries, were accused of being part of a plot to undermine aid to Ukraine by trying to blow up military infrastructure.Two men have been arrested in Germany over suspicions that they spied for Russia and were part of a plot to sabotage aid to Ukraine by trying to blow up military infrastructure on German soil, the authorities announced on Thursday.The two men, both dual citizens of Russia and Germany, were arrested on Wednesday in Bayreuth, a city about 120 miles north of Munich, German federal prosecutors said. The arrests came as worries grow in Germany about the reach of Russian intelligence and disruption operations.One of the men had been in contact with Russian intelligence services and had considered a U.S. military base in Germany as one of several potential targets, according to federal prosecutors based in Karlsruhe, in southwestern Germany, who oversaw the arrests.The two men have not been formally charged. But the federal prosecutors said that the pair were suspected of working for a foreign intelligence service and, in one man’s case, of illegally taking pictures of military infrastructure and of planning explosive attacks and arson.In a statement on Thursday, Nancy Faeser, Germany’s interior minister, condemned a “particularly serious case of suspected agent activity” tied to the “criminal regime” of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.Since Russia’s attack on Ukraine, relations between Moscow and Berlin have soured. Last year, Germany closed down four Russian consulates after Moscow limited the number of German diplomatic staff allowed to stay in Russia.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Mike Johnson aid bills: what is the US speaker’s plan for Ukraine and Israel, and will it pass Congress?

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      US House speaker, Mike Johnson, has said long-awaited votes on aid for Ukraine, Israel and the Indo-Pacific will take place as soon as Saturday, putting the senior Republican on a collision course with members of his own party.At stake is $95bn of US security assistance that has been in limbo for months, amid fierce objections from far-right Republicans. Johnson’s decision to push ahead with the votes also puts his own job at risk, with at least two Republicans threatening to put forward a motion to remove him, just six months after he assumed the job.How did we get here?Congress has been frozen for months in its efforts to approve military aid for Ukraine due to growing opposition among Republicans.The voices of isolationist Republicans have grown louder, bolstered by former president Donald Trump who has said foreign aid should be structured as a loan, not a “giveaway”, while calling into question America’s commitment to its Nato allies who are committed to Ukraine’s defence.Efforts to pass legislation that would secure military assistance for Ukraine hit another barrier in 2023, as some Republicans began to insist that the foreign aid bill must be tied to addressing the needs at the US-Mexico border, where arrests for illegal crossings have hit record highs.In February, the Senate voted to block the advancement of a bill that guaranteed foreign aid, while also providing new powers to shut down the border and expedite deportations.Later that month the Senate passed a bill that provided $95bn of wartime aid to Ukraine, Israel and other American allies, but contained no provisions related to the US border.Despite this legislation passing with broad, bipartisan support in the Senate, Johnson continually refused to bring the Senate bill to the floor of the House. Without the House voting to approve it, the bill remained stalled up until this week.How do the new bills differ from those the Senate approved?On Tuesday, Johnson unveiled his proposals, which involved holding votes on three separate funding packages for Ukraine, Israel and the Indo-Pacific – as well as a fourth bill that contains other Republican foreign policy proposals.The package totals $95.3bn in spending, which matches the total the Senate passed in February, but contains a few differences designed to win over some House conservatives.Aid to Ukraine would total about $61bn, but more than a third of that amount would be dedicated to replenishing weapons and ammunition systems for the US military.The $13.8bn provided to Ukraine for the purchase of weapons from the US is roughly the same as the previous Senate bill.The main difference between the two packages is that the House bill provides more than $9bn in economic assistance to Ukraine in the form of “forgivable loans”. The Senate bill included no such provision seeking repayment.The idea of structuring the aid as a loan is a key Trump policy proposal and is supported by a number of Republicans.Johnson says the House bill package also includes a requirement for the Biden administration to provide a plan and a strategy to Congress for what it seeks to achieve in Ukraine. The plan would be required within 45 days of the bill being signed into law. House Republicans frequently complain that they have yet to see a strategy for ending the war.Aid to support Israel and provide humanitarian relief to Gaza comes to more than $26bn. The money dedicated to replenishing Israel’s missile defence systems totals about $4bn in both the House and Senate bills. Some of the money allocated to Israel will also cover the cost of US military operations responding to recent attacks.Johnson has said his package for the Indo-Pacific will include about $8bn to counter China and ensure a strong deterrence in the region. The overall amount of money is about the same as the Senate bill, with a quarter of funds used to replenish weapons and ammunition systems that had been provided to Taiwan.Why has Johnson chosen to advance the aid packages now?After Iran’s unprecedented weekend attack on Israel, the White House and top Democrats and Republicans in the Senate called on Johnson to approve the Senate’s aid package. On Sunday, he told Fox News that Republicans understood the “necessity of standing with Israel”.At the same time, as US aid to Ukraine has stalled, Kyiv’s position on the battlefield has reached a perilous position. Insufficient ammunition and dwindling air defence missiles have left the country’s defences exposed.In Washington, alarm has grown at the deteriorating situation and at a hearing on Wednesday, Pentagon leaders testified that Ukraine and Israel both desperately need weapons.On Wednesday, Johnson told reporters: “History judges us for what we do. This is a critical time right now.” According to reports in the Washington Post, Johnson’s opposition to Ukraine aid has changed since he became speaker and began to receive intelligence briefings more frequently.Will the aid packages pass?Johnson is attempting to corral a divided Republican party with the slimmest of majorities in the House. With a number of Republicans avowedly committed to opposing the bills, the speaker will be reliant on support from Democrats to push the legislation through.House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries has said he plans to gather Democrats for a meeting on Thursday morning to discuss the package.“Our topline commitment is ironclad,” he told reporters. “We are going to make sure we stand by our democratic allies in Ukraine, in Israel, in the Indo-Pacific.”The proposals have already received a ringing endorsement from Joe Biden, who has said he will sign the packages into law immediately, should Congress pass them. A number of Republicans have indicated they will support them as well.In an effort to satisfy conservatives in his own party, Johnson said he will hold a separate vote on a border security package, however some Republicans have already denounced the plan as insufficient.At least two Republican House members have threatened to try to oust Johnson if he goes ahead with the votes.Far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, was joined by Thomas Massie of Kentucky, in calling for Johnson to resign.“I want someone that will actually pursue a Republican agenda and knows how to walk in the room and negotiate and not get tossed around the room like some kind of party toy,” Greene said. But she added that she would not move on the motion to vacate Johnson as speaker before the vote on foreign aid.The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report More

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      Mike Johnson moves ahead with foreign aid bills despite threats to oust him

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      The House speaker, Mike Johnson, is pushing ahead with his plan to hold votes on four separate foreign aid bills this week, despite threats from two fellow Republicans to oust him if he advances a Ukraine funding proposal.Shortly after noon on Wednesday, the rules committee posted text for three bills that would provide funding for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. The text of a fourth bill, which is expected to include measures to redirect seized Russian assets toward Ukraine and force the sale of TikTok, will be released later on Wednesday, Johnson said in a note to members.The legislation would provide $26bn in aid for Israel, $61bn for Ukraine and $8bn for US allies in the Indo-Pacific. The Israel bill also appeared to include more than $9bn in humanitarian assistance, which Democrats had demanded to assist civilians in war zones like Gaza.Johnson indicated final votes on the bills were expected on Saturday evening, interfering with the House’s scheduled recess that was supposed to begin on Friday. If the House passes the bills, they will then be combined and sent to the Senate to simplify the upper chamber’s voting process.In February, the Senate approved a $95bn foreign aid package that included many of the same provisions outlined in the four House bills, and the upper chamber will need to reapprove the House package before it can go to Joe Biden’s desk for his signature.In a statement, Biden called on the House to quickly approve Johnson’s proposal, saying, “The House must pass the package this week and the Senate should quickly follow. I will sign this into law immediately to send a message to the world: we stand with our friends, and we won’t let Iran or Russia succeed.”Johnson will almost certainly have to rely on Democratic votes to get the bills approved, as House Republicans’ majority has narrowed to just two members after a series of resignations. Mike Gallagher, a Republican representative of Wisconsin, had planned to resign on Friday, but his spokesperson told Politico that he “has the flexibility to stay and support the aid package on Saturday”.Some prominent Democrats were already signaling their support for the package on Wednesday, increasing the likelihood of its passage.“After House Republicans dragged their feet for months, we finally have a path forward to provide support for our allies and desperately needed humanitarian aid,” said Rose DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House appropriations committee. “We cannot retreat from the world stage under the guise of putting ‘America First’.”In a concession to hard-right Republicans, Johnson said in his note to members that the House would also vote on Saturday on a border security bill. The text of the legislation will be posted late Wednesday, Johnson said, and it will include many of the policies outlined in HR 2, a Republican bill with many hardline immigration measures.The House already passed HR 2 last year, but it was never taken up by the Senate. The Democrats who control the Senate remain adamantly opposed to the bill, so a similar proposal faces little hope of passage in the upper chamber.Despite that concession, hard-right Republicans were already expressing displeasure with Johnson’s plan on Wednesday, arguing that any Ukraine aid must be directly linked with stricter border policies.“Anything less than tying Ukraine aid to real border security fails to live up to [Johnson’s] own words just several weeks ago,” Congressman Scott Perry, a hard-right Republican of Pennsylvania, wrote on X. “Our constituents demand – and deserve – more from us.”Congressman Chip Roy, a Republican of Texas and frequent Johnson critic, announced he would oppose the rule, a procedural motion, that will set up a final vote on the foreign aid bills.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“The Republican Speaker of the House is seeking a rule to pass almost $100 billion in foreign aid – while unquestionably, dangerous criminals, terrorists [and] fentanyl pour across our border,” Roy wrote on X. “The border ‘vote’ in this package is a watered-down dangerous cover vote. I will oppose.”The release of the bills comes as Johnson faces a threat from two House Republicans, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky, to oust him over his approach to government funding and Ukraine aid. On Tuesday, Massie announced he would co-sponsor Greene’s resolution to remove the speaker. Given Republicans’ narrow majority, Johnson will need help from Democrats to keep his job.Undaunted by the threat, Johnson has rejected calls for his resignation and accused Greene and Massie of undermining House Republicans’ legislative priorities.“I am not resigning, and it is, in my view, an absurd notion that someone would bring a vacate motion when we are simply here trying to do our jobs,” Johnson said on Tuesday. “It is not helpful to the cause. It is not helpful to the country. It does not help the House Republicans advance our agenda.”In a floor speech on Wednesday, the Senate majority leader, Democrat Chuck Schumer, again implored House Republicans to pass a foreign aid package. The stakes – for Ukraine and US allies around the world – could not be higher, he reminded them.“One way or another, I hope – I fervently hope – that we can finally finish the job in the next couple of days, but that is not certain and will depend a lot on what the House does,” Schumer said. “The entire world is waiting to see what House Republicans will do.” More

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      Kharkiv at risk of becoming ‘second Aleppo’ without US aid, mayor says

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      Kharkiv is at risk of becoming “a second Aleppo” unless US politicians vote for fresh military aid to help Ukraine obtain the air defences needed to prevent long-range Russian attacks, the city’s mayor has warned.Ihor Terekhov said Russia had switched tactics to try to destroy the city’s power supply and terrorise its 1.3 million residents by firing into residential areas, with people experiencing unscheduled power cuts for hours at a time.The mayor of Ukraine’s second city said the $60bn US military aid package, currently stalled in Congress, was of “critical importance for us” and urged the west to refocus on the two-year-old war.“We need that support to prevent Kharkiv being a second Aleppo,” Terekhov said, referring to the Syrian city heavily bombed by Russian and Syrian government forces at the height of the country’s civil war a decade ago.View image in fullscreenOn 22 March, Russian attacks destroyed a power station on the eastern edge of the city as well all its substations; a week later officials acknowledged a second plant, 30 miles south-east of the city, had been eliminated in the same attack.Power in the city, about 30 miles from the Russian border, was interrupted after another bombing raid this week, causing the metro to be halted briefly. Residents said there was usually a few hours’ supply a day in the city centre, although in the outskirts the situation was said to be better.Children are educated either online or in underground schools, for their own safety. The water supply remains on, but Terekhov said there were concerns the Russian military may switch to targeting gas distribution, after storage facilities in the west were attacked last week.Ukrainian leaders have begun asking western nations to donate Patriot air defence systems, requests for help that were thrown into sharper relief by the US and UK military support for Israel over the weekend when it neutralised an air attack from Iran.President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the allies’ defensive action “demonstrated how truly effective unity in defending against terror can be when it is based on sufficient political will” – before making a comparison to Ukraine.Iranian-designed Shahed drones used by Russia “sound identical to those over the Middle East”, he said. “The impact of ballistic missiles, if they are not intercepted, is the same everywhere.”The Ukrainian leader concluded: “European skies could have received the same level of protection long ago if Ukraine had received similar full support from its partners in intercepting drones and missiles.”Seven people were killed in Kharkiv when two rockets struck near an unused shopping mall on the ring road north of the city shortly after midnight on 6 April, leaving behind 4-metre-deep craters and military debris near a residential area.Nina Mykhailivna, 72, who lives nearby, said the shock from the strike “lifted her bed in the air” and was followed by about 90 minutes of secondary explosions, the most serious she had experienced during the war.Few residents have left the city since Russia increased its bombing campaign around the turn of the year, and Kharkiv remains a lively metropolis with busy restaurants and cafes, and some businesses thriving despite the threat.View image in fullscreenOleksii Yevsiukov, 39, and Viktoriia Varenikova, 30, run the Avex clothing factory in a residential district and have installed $20,000 worth of solar panels on the roof since the start of the conflict. The additions provide enough electricity to power the sewing machines for the 10 employees working below in the Soviet-era building, which is undergoing a total refurbishment.“We anticipated there might be power cuts from energy infrastructure attacks this winter,” Yevsiukov said. “We looked at solutions and decided a diesel generator was not suitable, expensive and not very eco friendly, so we ordered the solar panels last year.”A newly installed power bank stores enough electricity for two days’ use if the panels are unable to generate it, and a geothermal pump keeps the building warm, avoiding the need for gas. As such, the factory is self-sufficient, which could become necessary as the owners anticipate at least two more years of war.View image in fullscreenTheir company makes women’s swim and fitness wear for branded companies in Ukraine, and, the couple say, sales have grown even though the goods might be considered luxuries during wartime. With the factory refurbishment nearly complete, Yevsiukov said they planned to roughly double the workforce.Soon after the war began, Varenikova found out she was pregnant. Their son Max is now one, and she expresses the hope that war might be over by the time he is ready for school. “I want him to go to a normal school, not an underground school, not a school in the metro, not an online school.”However, not everybody is so optimistic. One of the firm’s employees, Liubov, said she was planning to leave her home in Kharkiv and move to central Ukraine for at least a month to provide a calmer environment for her two daughters, who can continue to take classes remotely.Russian bombing had become “much more frequent, much more often”, Liubov said. The comprehensive attack on 22 March was “very, very scary and loud” and “attacks could come at daytime or night-time, in any part of the city”.Liubov did not want to be photographed or give a surname, reflecting perhaps a concern about not wanting to be identified as someone leaving the city. “We’ve had to get used to everything, I wish we didn’t have to. We have power banks, we have storage of food, but we want this to be over soon. We simply want to live.” More

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      Mike Johnson says he won’t resign as Republican anger grows over foreign aid

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      Defiant and determined, the House speaker, Mike Johnson, pushed back on Tuesday against mounting Republican anger over his proposed US aid package for Ukraine, Israel and other allies, and rejected a call to step aside or risk a vote to oust him from office.“I am not resigning,” Johnson said after a testy morning meeting of fellow House Republicans at the Capitol.Johnson referred to himself as a “wartime speaker” of the House and indicated in his strongest self-defense yet he would press forward with a US national security aid package, a situation that would force him to rely on Democrats to help pass it, over objections from his weakened majority.“We are simply here trying to do our jobs,” Johnson said, calling the motion to oust him “absurd … not helpful.”Tuesday brought a definitive shift in tone from both the House Republicans and the speaker himself at a pivotal moment as the embattled leader tries, against the wishes of his majority, to marshal the votes needed to pass the stalled national security aid for Israel, Ukraine and other overseas allies.Johnson appeared emboldened by his meeting late last week with Donald Trump when the Republican former president threw him a political lifeline with a nod of support after their private talk at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. At his own press conference on Tuesday, Johnson spoke of the importance of ensuring Trump, who is now at his criminal trial in New York, is re-elected to the White House.Johnson also spoke over the weekend with Joe Biden as well as other congressional leaders about the emerging US aid package, which the speaker plans to move in separate votes for each section – with bills for Ukraine, Israel and the Indo-Pacific region. He spoke about it with Biden again late on Monday.It is a complicated approach that breaks apart the Senate’s $95bn aid package for separate votes, and then stitches it back together for the president’s signature.The approach will require the speaker to cobble together bipartisan majorities with different factions of House Republicans and Democrats on each measure. Additionally, Johnson is preparing a fourth measure that would include various Republican-preferred national security priorities, such as a plan to seize some Russian assets in US banks to help fund Ukraine and another to turn the economic aid for Ukraine into loans.The plan is not an automatic deal-breaker for Democrats in the House and Senate, with leaders refraining from comment until they see the actual text of the measure, due out later on Tuesday.House Republicans, however, were livid that Johnson will be leaving their top priority – efforts to impose more security at the US-Mexico border – on the sidelines. Some predicted Johnson will not be able to push ahead with voting on the package this week, as planned.Representative Debbie Lesko, a Republican from Arizona, called the morning meeting an “argument fest”.She said Johnson was “most definitely” losing support for the plan, but he seemed undeterred in trying to move forward despite “what the majority of the conference” of Republicans wanted.When the speaker said the House GOP’s priority border security bill HR 2 would not be considered germane to the package, Chip Roy, a Texas Republican and a chief sponsor, said it was for the House to determine which provisions and amendments are relevant.“Things are very unresolved,” Roy said.Roy said Republicans want “to be united. They just have to be able to figure out how to do it.”The speaker faces a threat of ouster from Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, the top Trump ally who has filed a motion to vacate the speaker’s office in a snap vote – much the way Republicans ousted their former speaker, Kevin McCarthy, last fall.While Greene has not said if or when she will force the issue, and has not found much support for her plan after last year’s turmoil over McCarthy’s exit, she drew at least one key supporter on Tuesday.Representative Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky, rose in the meeting and suggested Johnson should step aside, pointing to the example of John Boehner, an even earlier Republican House speaker who announced an early resignation in 2015 rather than risk a vote to oust him, according to Republicans in the room.Johnson did not respond, according to Republicans in the room, but told the lawmakers they had a “binary” choice” before them.The speaker explained they either try to pass the package as he is proposing or risk facing a discharge petition from Democrats that would force a vote on their preferred package – the Senate-approved measure. But that would leave behind the extra Republican priorities. More