Ron Johnson Says 'Putin Will Not Lose the War,' Votes Against Ukraine Aid

Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson has elaborated on his decision to go against a measure to allow the House of Representatives to vote for further aid to Ukraine, saying that Russia's leader Vladimir Putin "will not lose the war."

On Monday night, a bipartisan coalition of senators approved motions to push forward a package of further aid to countries including Ukraine and Israel. Senators voted in a majority to end dilatory debate on the $95 billion package, setting up a final vote for early Tuesday morning to send it to the House. Johnson, a Republican, was among a large group of GOP senators who voted against it.

Speaking on conservative news network Real America's Voice, Johnson said that, while Putin was "a war criminal", some of the things the Russian president said in his interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, that aired last week, were right.

"Our policy should be focused on how do we bring Vladimir Putin to the table," Johnson said.

"We're cutting off our nose to spite our face with some of these sanctions," he added, saying that it was making American dollars less important as Russia starts to trade in other currencies.

Johnson said: "A lot of the points that Vladimir Putin made are accurate. They're obvious, and so many of our people here in Washington D.C. are just ignoring that, making people believe like Ukraine can win. Putin won't lose. Putin will not lose. He's not going to lose."

Johnson added that people needed to accept this reality to deal with the war and bring it to a close.

Newsweek contacted representatives for Johnson by email for comment.

The package politicians are deliberating would allocate $60 billion in aid to Ukraine's military operation, $14 billion to Israel and US military operations in the region and more than $8 billion to US partners in the Indo-Pacific region, including Taiwan. It also allocates nearly $10 billion for humanitarian efforts in Ukraine, Israel and Gaza.

Republicans have long argued that any additional aid to Ukraine should be tied to additional border security funding, amid soaring encounters on the southern border.

In a statement, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson criticized the deal, and said it lacked border security provisions. "House Republicans were crystal clear from the very beginning of discussions that any so-called national security supplemental legislation must recognize that national security begins at our own border," he said.

He added: "America deserves better than the Senate's status quo."

On Monday, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said the weekend votes demonstrated "beyond doubt that there's strong support" for advancing the foreign aid package.

Schumer said: "These are the enormously high stakes of the supplemental package: our security, our values, our democracy. It is a down payment for the survival of western democracy and the survival of American values."

He added: "The entire world is going to remember what the Senate does in the next few days. Nothing—nothing—would make Putin happier right now than to see Congress waver in its support for Ukraine; nothing would help him more on the battlefield."

During his interview with Carlson, which represented the first time the Russian leader was interviewed by Western media since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Putin suggested that Russia was open to peace talks with Ukraine, but claimed that the United States was getting in the way.

Update 2/13/24, 6:00 a.m. ET: This story was updated with additional information.