For five consecutive winters, members of Congress have watched from Washington as Russia’s war has inflicted not only battlefield casualties but also a sustained assault on Ukraine’s civilian lifelines including heat, electricity and water, turning the cold weather itself into a weapon.
This week, during a visit to Kyiv and the first congressional delegation to the port city of Odessa, a group of Democratic senators encountered that reality firsthand during the coldest winter since Russia’s full-scale invasion in early 2022.
“You see immediately that this is not a frozen conflict for Ukranians,” Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said during her visit. “Almost four years on, civilian infrastructure and energy infrastructure continue to be deliberately targeted.”
Ms. Shaheen was joined in Odessa by three other Democratic senators, Chris Coons of Delaware, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island. Mr. Blumenthal and Mr. Whitehouse had also stopped in Kyiv earlier in the week.
The senators were there not only to demonstrate American solidarity with Ukraine as the war enters its fifth year, but also to press President Trump and his allies in the Republican-controlled Congress for more support for Ukraine and to intensify pressure on Russia in a grinding war of attrition that the Kremlin thinks it can withstand.
The Democrats said they were hopeful that Republicans on Capitol Hill were ready to move forward with a tough new sanctions bill that Mr. Trump has been resisting for almost a year and to press the president to furnish more military assistance.
“The path to lasting peace runs through sustained pressure on Vladimir Putin,” Ms. Shaheen said, referring to the Russian president. “I am seeing growing bipartisan recognition that Putin is intent on just waiting us out, and that failing to act decisively now will only prolong the war.”
Some Republicans have been moving in that direction.
“We need for the administration to unleash the Tomahawk missiles,” Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the Republican chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said last week during an appearance in Munich with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine.
In a social media post, Representative Don Bacon, Republican of Nebraska, criticized Mr. Tump’s lack of action.
“The President’s policies towards Ukraine and Russia polls in the low 30s,” he wrote. “Most Americans have moral clarity on who is the invader and who is bombing cities everyday. Americans want this Administration to stand on side of freedom, free markets and rule of law.”
Others in the G.O.P. have signaled that they may be ready to move forward with a long-stalled package of economic penalties aimed at the economic engine of the Kremlin’s war machine: energy exports.
Republicans backed away from the measure over the summer when Mr. Trump appeared more willing to take consequential action toward Mr. Putin amid a summit with the Russian leader that yielded few results and stalled negotiations. The president imposed sanctions on two large Russian oil companies, but they did not choke off Mr. Putin’s resources as Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill had envisioned.
The night before the delegation arrived in Odessa, Russia launched more than two dozen missiles into Ukraine. While air defenses intercepted most, several penetrated, hitting power plants and residential areas.
“The frequency and severity of strikes on Odessa and port infrastructure is intensifying,” Mr. Coons said, noting that American business were being targeted and impacted.
“It’s open season on American business,” Mr. Blumenthal said. “Nearly half of them have been directly or purposefully attacked. The American people deserve to know that Putin is targeting American businesses.”
Mr. Trump, with his “America First” philosophy, has remained opposed to sending American aid to Ukraine. In lieu of the tens of billions of dollars in military aid Congress regularly approved during the Biden administration, he has forged an arrangement in which the United States sells weapons to European allies willing to deliver them to Ukraine.
Last week, Norway, Britain, the Netherlands and Sweden announced plans to purchase $500 million worth of Patriot missiles, artillery shells and other munitions from the United States. And on Tuesday, Latvia’s prime minister said her country would buy $11 million of U.S.-made weapons for Ukraine.
But some Republicans in Congress are pushing for more. In the House, a Democratic bid to force a vote on a new package of aid for Ukraine is just one Republican supporter short of success. The effort, led by Representative Gregory W. Meeks of New York, the top Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, has the support of all Democrats and two Republicans, Mr. Bacon and Representative Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania. A separate effort to force a vote on a sanctions package against Russia began collecting signatures this week.
In the Senate, a similar sanctions measure is said to be regaining momentum and could soon be brought to a vote, though Mr. Trump, who has resisted it, has yet to endorse it.
“Only by increasing the costs on Russia,” Mr. Coons said, “will they come to the table.”
Robert Jimison covers Congress for The Times, with a focus on defense issues and foreign policy.
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