In March of 2014, President Obama pledged $1-billion in aid to Ukraine. Most important at that time was Liquefied Natural Gas, to replace the gas the Russins were cutting off. Interesting to note is that the pro-Russian prosecutor that the EU, US and many of our allies wanted ousted started a failed investigation of Burisma, a company started to increase Ukraine's independent access to NG. That investigation failed to produce evidence of wrong doing.
Anyway, Republicans in the Senate blocked this aid package, at the encouragement of the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation and the other usual suspects, the Koch Brothers. Go back and read newspaper stories from that time and you will find that neither of these parties hid their role in blocking this aid. The excuse they used was a need to change the wording in the charter of the International Monetary Fund. Russia was invading Ukraine, and the most important issue for Republicans was the wording of a charter of an orgainzation that we could opt not to use to disperse this aid.
Not all Republicans bought into this obstruction, led by Moscow Mitch. "The I.M.F. reforms are not the reason why this legislation is before us. The reason it’s before us is Vladimir Putin has absorbed Crimea into Russia,” said Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona. (NY Times--March 24, 2014
Some of us pay attention and remember that Moscow Mitch blocked almost every initiative of the Obama Administration. Remember his pledge to make him a "One Term President?" That partisan interferrence in all actions did not stop after he failed to keep Obama from being re-elected. Moscow Mitch, working in conference with the usual suspects mentioned above, let the Russians take what they wanted in the Ukraine for domestic political points.
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