U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet visited Ukraine on Friday as part of an envoy of Democrats seeking to reassure allies there that the United States would not falter in its wartime support.
The Colorado senator joined Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sens. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire and Jack Reed of Rhode Island on the trip. Reed chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The five Democrats visited the western Ukrainian city of Lviv on a trip that came as the latest U.S. aid package is stalled in the U.S. House.
“Ukraine is not in a fight just for Ukraine,” Bennet said at a news conference with Ukrainian media on Friday morning, according to a transcript provided by his office. “Ukraine’s in a fight for democracy, and Ukraine is in a fight for freedom and for the entire world. And the Ukrainian people have done everything that the free world could have asked of the Ukrainian people.”
Bennet noted that his own mother was born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1938 — just before Nazi Germany invaded the country — and that the United States also had to overcome isolationist voices to involve itself in World War II.
“It’s time for the rest of the world to do our part,” Bennet said. “And it’s up to the United States of America to lead that.”
The senators’ visit occurred a day before the second anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and more than a week after the Senate passed a $95 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. About $60 billion of that would go to support Ukrainian war efforts and as non-military aid. That aid package passed 70-29 in the Senate.
It is now held up in the Republican-led House.
Schumer told The Associated Press ahead of the trip that he planned to tell Ukrainian officials that the United States would not abandon them in their fight. The U.S. so far has spent more than $75 billion to aid Ukraine, according to the New York Times, not including the package currently in limbo.
“I feel I have to be there because it’s so crucial,” Schumer said. “We are right at a vortex, a critical turning point in the whole West. And if we abandon Ukraine, the consequences for America are severe.”
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