Will the Congressional Putin Caucus Give Ally Ukraine to a Bloodthirsty Dictator?

Today, the House of Representatives is back from a 2-week vacation and news reports suggest that Speaker “Moscow Mike” Johnson may put legislation on the floor to provide aid to Ukraine.
Other news reports, however, say that his entire “I’ll consider Ukraine aid” is just BS: that he’s going to poison pill the legislation by attaching riders and amendments demanding things that Democrats won’t go along with.
Sunday, Johnson told Fox “News”:
“We’ve been talking to all the members, especially now over the district work period. When we return after this work period, we’ll be moving a product, but it’s going to, I think, have some important innovations.”
Innovations? You mean scams? Like calling the aid to Ukraine a “loan” or funding it with seized Russian assets, a process that could introduce more months of delay.
The Congressional Putin Caucus is outraged at even the possibility that we may help a fellow democracy fend off violent attacks and child kidnappings (over 100,000 so far) from the Russian dictator. As Marjorie Taylor Greene said in the context of her threat to push her discharge petition to remove Johnson from his Speaker’s seat:
“I’m going to tell you right now: funding Ukraine is probably one of the most egregious things that he can do.”
Putin, being a former intelligence officer, understands well the importance of propaganda as a weapon to destroy an enemy. And he’s been using that knowledge — and billions of rubles running social media troll operations — to influence both American public opinion and the opinions of Republicans in Congress.
His efforts have become so blatant that the chairmen of both the House Intelligence Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee are warning the public and their colleagues about Republicans who are openly taking Putin’s side in the conflict.
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.) was blunt, saying that Russian propaganda “has infected a good chunk of my party’s base.” He elaborated to Puck News:
“There are some more nighttime entertainment shows that seem to spin, like, I see the Russian propaganda in some of it — and it’s almost identical [to what they’re saying on Russian state television] — on our airwaves.”
McCaul added, “[T]hese people that read various conspiracy-theory outlets that are just not accurate, and they actually model Russian propaganda.”
Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Rep. Michael R. Turner (R-Ohio) was equally specific when asked if he agreed with McCaul’s statement:
“Oh, it is absolutely true. We see directly coming from Russia attempts to mask communications that are anti-Ukraine, and pro-Russia messages, some of which we even hear being uttered on the House floor.”
Republicans are promoting pro-Putin propaganda because they know, with the leader of their party in thrall to the Russian dictator, that there will be no pushback or consequence; Trump actually rewards such behavior with special recognition, private phone calls, and visits to Mar-a-Lago. Just ask Marjorie Taylor Greene.
But it’s not just members of Congress. Elon Musk has promoted Russian propagandists on X and cut off access to Starlink when Ukraine was preparing an attack on the Russian navy at Crimea. And just this past weekend RFK Jr. also echoed Putin himself, saying:
“Putin said, ‘Look I don’t want to go into Crimea. Let’s negotiate a peace.’ Alright, and the three things he wanted — he wanted to keep NATO out of Ukraine. That was number one. He wanted to de-Nazify the Ukrainian government…”
It’s almost verbatim from Putin’s 2022 speech, when he said that he’s not invading a sovereign country but, instead, he just:
“[S]eek[s] to demilitarize and de-Nazify Ukraine, as well as bring to trial those who perpetrated numerous bloody crimes against civilians, including against citizens of the Russian Federation.”
Unlike RFK Jr., even Putin is no longer trying to claim that Ukraine represented a NATO provocation. Putin is emphatic that Ukraine is not a real country, but an illegitimate breakaway region of Russia.
And that de-Nazify trope is an old one; the fact that Ukraine’s president is Jewish pretty much puts the lie to it. So now, hooking on that “Did you know Zelenskyy is Jewish?” meme, rightwing American friends of Putin have changed tact.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Putin’s number one fangirl in the House, laid it out on Steve Bannon’s podcast while discussing Putin’s bloody 2-year-long attack on Ukraine:
“Let’s talk about what this really is, Steve: This is a war against Christianity. The Ukrainian government is attacking Christians; the Ukrainian government is executing priests. Russia is not doing that; they’re not attacking Christianity. As a matter of fact, they seem to be protecting it.”
For the record, over 80 priests have been killed in Ukraine, every single one of them murdered by Russian bombs or soldiers. But, hey, have you noticed that Zelenskyy is Jewish and bloodthirsty dictator Putin loves to claim he’s a Christian?
Even the new co-chairman of the Republican National Committee has gotten into the “let’s suck up to Putin and trash America and our allies” shtick. Michael Whatley told Maria Bartiromo on Fox “News” Sunday that Ukraine, like China and Iran, is an enemy of the United States:
“Joe Biden’s feckless leadership has shown China, has shown Ukraine, has shown Iran, that they can feel free to be much more aggressive on the world front to the point where even they will try and meddle with our elections here.” (emphasis mine)
The simple reality is that Ukraine is an independent nation with a democratic form of government that aspires to join the European Union and NATO. Putin views it (and several other countries in the region) as part of “greater Russia” and has made the mission of the last years of his life to reunite that empire, much like Catherine the Great (whom he often invokes).
If we fail to aid Ukraine and Russia succeeds in overwhelming that country, expect Putin to head to Moldova and Poland or the Baltic states next: both his generals and his #2, Dmitry Medvedev have said so in public.
That could lead to a land war in Europe if one of those countries invokes NATO’s Article Five mutual defense obligation; it could also draw in America. And such a conflict in Europe would be a signal to President Xi that it’s time for China to invade Taiwan in the same way Putin did Ukraine. Then we’re in or close to World War III.
Which, it appears, is just fine with Donald Trump and the Putin Caucus among congressional Republicans.
They’re perfectly happy to ignore the agreement that Russia, Great Britain, and the United States signed with Ukraine on December 5, 1994, when they agreed to surrender the world’s second largest nuclear arsenal to Russia in exchange for a firm, signed agreement from all three countries that they’d all respect Ukraine’s borders and sovereignty.
Putin is ignoring that agreement, and Republicans want to follow his lead.
As Liz Cheney said recently:
“I think that we have to take Donald Trump very seriously. We have to take seriously the extent to which you have now got a Putin wing of the Republican Party.”
“Traitor” and “treason” are not words to be thrown around lightly. But I can’t see how any other words could describe American legislators who want to surrender an allied democracy to a bloodthirsty dictator in exchange for props from Donald Trump and political help on social media from Russian trolls.
This week we’ll find out how far this attack on American values has reached, and whether Speaker Johnson is going to hold to his pro-Putin position. Keep an eye on it and let your member of the House know your thoughts (202-224-3121).

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