Sen. Tommy Tuberville on Ukraine: 'Right now would be a great time to negotiate' amid 'stalemate'
'It’s costing a lot of lives in Ukraine and Russia,' Tuberville said of the ongoing war in Ukraine, 'There is no reason to have this'
Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., of the Armed Services Committee warned Monday that the war in Ukraine is "costing American taxpayers an arm and a leg," and declared, "We have to get this conflict over with."
"Right now would be a great time to negotiate over in Ukraine and Moscow to get this thing stopped, because they pretty much have a stalemate as we speak," Tuberville said on "Kudlow." There’s not going to be a lot of fighting happening. We have got to get this conflict over with. It is costing American taxpayers an arm and a leg, and it’s costing a lot of lives in Ukraine and Russia. There is no reason to have this."
Israel-Hamas War Overshadows Ukraine’s Overture to Global South
After a devastating terror attack on Oct. 7, the Israel-Palestinian conflict has eclipsed the war in Ukraine as the major conflict being discussed on the international stage. Many American politicians, facing their own economic hardships at home, are at odds about how foreign aid should be divided going forward.
Ukraine’s effort to recruit allies from the so-called Global South to push forward a blueprint for peace was overshadowed by widening concern over the Israel-Hamas war during a meeting in Malta.
Talks on key principles needed to establish a just and lasting peace in Ukraine were interspersed with discussions about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as officials from more than 65 countries gathered over the weekend, according to people familiar with the matter.
House Republicans unveiled a $14.3 billion aid package for Israel on Monday, a show of support for the embattled U.S. ally amid its war against Hamas.
The cuts would affect funds included in the Democrats’ sweeping tax, health and climate bill — dubbed the Inflation Reduction Act — signed into law last year.
The package also deviates from the White House’s strategy of linking aid for Ukraine and Israel in the same piece of legislation, a fact that could make it even more difficult to get the bill over the finish line.
The legislation includes $4 billion for Israel’s Iron Dome and David’s Sling defense systems and another $1.2 billion for development of the Iron Beam defense system.
Zelenskyy aide on corruption in Ukraine: 'People are stealing like there's no tomorrow'
An advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the government has suffered "reputational damage" on the world stage for its sluggish efforts to battle corruption.
TIME senior correspondent Simon Shuster wrote about his experience following Zelenskyy and his team back to Ukraine after they visited the U.S. in September to appeal for aid, noting in Washington they had faced "insistent calls for Zelensky to fight corruption inside his own government, and the fading enthusiasm for a war with no end in sight."
As a key source of aid for Ukraine’s war effort, Shuster noted that the White House "prepared a list of anti-corruption reforms for the Ukrainians to undertake."
"These were not suggestions," one of Zelenskyy’s close aides said, but, rather, ’conditions.’
On Ukraine's front lines, soldiers experience burnout, depression, divorce, 'and a lot of PTSD'
There's a feeling that Ukraine's allies are asking the country's armed forces to fight a war in a way that they never would ask their own soldiers.
That's a normal human reaction to a year-and-a-half of bloodshed. Ukrainians are tired, they're exhausted, and they want a normal, stable, safe life.
For more than 600 days now, Ukraine has withstood a full-scale invasion that it was supposed to lose in about 48 hours. But that defense is taking its toll on frontline soldiers who feel they are bearing a heavy burden that is not shared by the rest of society.
Although freezing the conflict with a cease-fire may have some attraction, Russian President Vladimir Putin is not interested in good-faith negotiations, Haring argued, and Ukrainians see any hypothetical pause in the fighting as only serving the Kremlin's interests.