Europe is 'very impatient': New ambassador raises alarm over stalled $60 billion in Ukraine aid
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When Jovita Neliupšienė left her home in Lithuania for Washington, she brought along a closet’s worth of business attire – and left behind the emergency ''go'' bag that many of her countrymen keep nearby in case of a Russian attack.
“You have to always have money, gasoline and so forth” on hand, said Neliupšienė, the European Union's new ambassador to the U.S. “Because it's literally on your doorstep.”
Now, as Europe’s top diplomat in America, Neliupšienė is working to instill in congressional leaders the sharp urgency that’s felt on Europe's eastern border, as a $60 billion American aid package for Ukraine lies stalled in the Republican-controlled House.
Two months into the job, it hasn’t been easy.
Americans “are in favor” helping defend Ukraine, she said. “If we look at the public opinion polls, it's more than 70%, who actually support U.S. actions for Ukraine,” she told USA TODAY. “So when someone is saying that you have to persuade your constituencies, it's not true.”
“What is extremely important is the leadership – the moral clarity.”
Related: Alexei Navalny, a thorn in Vladimir Putin's side, died. What does it mean for Russia?
A holdup in the House
While nearly three-quarters of Americans view Ukraine’s defense against Vladimir Putin as important to U.S. interests, according to a recent survey, there are other more vexing numbers standing in Neliupšienė’s way.
The GOP controls the House of Representatives by a six-seat majority, 55% of Republicans say Washington is spending too much on Ukraine, and opposition to aid has become a mark of fealty to former President Donald Trump, who’s holding even with President Joe Biden at 44% in a new YouGov poll.
With American aid caught in the fist of the House Freedom Caucus, the E.U. and its 27 members have pledged an additional $50 billion to Ukraine, bringing European support to $150 billion since Russia first invaded two years ago. European leaders have pledged to buy desperately-needed ammunition for Kyiv as U.S. shipments have dwindled. The U.S. has so far given Ukraine $75 billion in humanitarian, financial and military support.
In a sign of European concerns over waning American interest, French President Emanuel Macron suggested this week that some European countries might dispatch troops to Ukraine, a notion that leaders of several NATO countries disavowed, and that Putin said could lead to nuclear war.
Seizing Russian assets on both sides of the Atlantic
"We need two feet on the ground, one on one side of the Atlantic, another on the other side, over there, if we want to have success and to see this war over," Neliupšienė said.
While the aid money remains stalled on Capitol Hill, Washington and Brussels are both working to find ways to seize Russian government assets − and use the funds to rebuild Ukraine.
The Senate is set to vote on the Repo Act, which would allow the government to seize $5 billion in frozen Russian government assets held inside the U.S.
The E.U., meanwhile, is considering taxing the interest on an estimated $170 billion in frozen Russian assets. "It's a huge step," Neliupšienė said, one that could reap between $5 billion and $6 billion an year for Ukraine.
"The E.U. is a key partner, especially in our efforts to repossess Russian sovereign assets to help rebuild Ukraine," Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told USA TODAY. “I look forward to working with the ambassador on it in the months and years ahead.”
Related: NATO troops in Ukraine? French proposal brings a warning from Russia
Strong words from Poland to Speaker Mike Johnson
On Monday in Washington, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski pushed House Speaker Mike Johnson to allow a vote on Ukraine aid, telling an audience at the Atlantic Council that if “Ukraine was to suffer reversals on the battlefield it will be his responsibility."
Neliupšienė, whose work involves smoothing transatlantic relations on topics including trade, artificial intelligence, and climate change, avoided commenting on U.S. domestic politics during a 45-minute interview. But the career diplomat, who wrote her doctoral thesis on Ukraine and Belarus, made clear the moral necessity of stopping Putin.
More: Congressional leaders meet with Biden, discuss government shutdown and Ukraine aid
U.S.-Russia comparisons: 'Draw your own conclusions'
Asked about statements by a number of Republicans likening Trump, who faces four criminal indictments, to Alexei Navalny, the Russian dissident who died last month in an Arctic Circle prison camp and was buried on Friday, Neliupšienė brushed off any comparison between the U.S. and Russia.
“Well, I can tell you what Russia is like, and maybe you can draw your own conclusions,” she said, launching into a long list of outrages committed by Vladimir Putin’s government, from the hundreds of political prisoners in Russian prisons, to rampant corruption to the muzzled press to the invasion of Ukraine itself, which has killed 10,500 civilians and more than 30,000 Ukrainian soldiers.
Returning to Navaly, she noted that Russian police had arrested mourners for trying to place flowers at memorials to the activist after his death. “I’m not really sure there’s something like that in the Western countries,” she said cooly.
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History's shadow
Neliupšienė formally presented her credentials to President Biden at the White House on Tuesday and the two spoke briefly of the need to stand fast on Ukraine.
“Russians don't care about the people, they don't count human lives,” she said. “And they would spare actually no life to get what they want. And that's why the war in Ukraine is so brutal.”
More: Despite 'dim prospects,' battered but unbowed Ukraine fights on 2 years after invasion
While Neliupšienė represents Europe, Lithuanian history informs her stance on the war.
Neliupšienė’s grandparents on both sides of her family were among the 132,000 Lithuanians deported to prison camps in Siberia after the Soviet Union swallowed Lithuania and the other Baltic nations after World War II. Some family members were forced to walk much of the way home, a distance of more than 2,000 miles, when their sentences were complete.
She has been a consistent voice warning of Russia’s danger to Europe. One month after Russian forces occupied the Ukrainian region of Crimea in 2014, she warned that Putin wouldn’t stop there. "Due to Russia's unpredictable behavior, the real security of the entire region, the entire international system…is in danger,” she said then.
Deadly consequences 'if Putin can outlast us'
Today, Neliupšienė is adamant that failure to support Ukraine will only lead to more invasions. On Wednesday, leaders in Transnistria, a Kremlin-backed breakaway region of Moldova bordering western Ukraine, requested Moscow’s protection – an apparent invitation for more Russian troops to deploy there.
“Other authoritarian or dictatorial leaders are looking at what is happening, and if Putin can outlast us, then the consequences can be quite global,” Neliupšienė said.
And so the European ambassador, like the White House and the Senate, waits for a breakthrough in the House.
“I think everybody in Europe is getting really very impatient,” she said.
“The Ukrainian people are looking toward Europeans and Americans, for they want to be with us and in our institutions,” she said. “They're fighting for our values. So if we really believe in what we preach, I think it's important to make a decision.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Europe 'very impatient' over $60B in Ukraine aid stalled in Congress
