WASHINGTON, United States – President Joe Biden warned on Tuesday that Russia was betting on the United States abandoning Ukraine as he promised President Volodymyr Zelensky to support Kiev even as Republicans blocked new military aid.

For his part, as Zelensky stood next to Biden at a White House news conference, he vowed that Ukraine would keep fighting and said it would be “crazy” for Kiev to give up any territory to secure a peace deal.

Russian President Vladimir Putin “expects that the United States will not deliver on Ukraine. We must, we must, we must prove him wrong,” Biden said. He said a Ukraine defeat would embolden Putin “and potential aggressors everywhere.”

Biden stressed that he would “not leave Ukraine,” adding that the United States would “continue to provide Ukraine with critical weapons and equipment for as long as we can.”

However, it is questionable how long the Biden administration can keep this up. Republicans in Congress are refusing to pass $60 billion in new Ukraine aid unless Democrats agree to comprehensive immigration reform.

Zelensky, who spent the morning speaking to Republicans and Democrats in Congress, signaled cautious optimism that the stalled U.S. aid flow will resume.

“I understood the signals. They were more than positive. But we know that we have to separate words and specific results,” Zelensky said.

‘CRAZY’

The Ukrainian leader also rejected suggestions that he might hand over territory taken by Russia since its invasion in February 2022 to move closer to a ceasefire.

“This is frankly crazy,” he said, before laying out plans to use Western aid to gain air superiority over Ukraine and attack Russian naval bases in 2024.

Biden said he had approved an additional $200 million in U.S. military aid to tide Ukraine over the coming weeks. The White House warned that without a deal in Congress, funding could dry up by the end of the year.

The united front in the White House contrasted with the growing division on Capitol Hill, where Republicans are not only insisting on a new policy for the U.S.-Mexico border but are increasingly questioning whether the war against Russian invasion should continue .

While Moscow spoke of new advances on the battlefield and predicted that any new aid to Kiev would be a “fiasco,” Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson expressed little enthusiasm for agreeing to Biden’s request despite his meeting with Zelensky.

“What the Biden administration appears to be demanding is billions of additional dollars without adequate oversight, without a clear strategy to win, and without the answers that I believe the American people are owed,” Johnson said.

Republican Senator JD Vance, who is close to party leader and likely 2024 presidential candidate Donald Trump, said Zelensky was “disgusting” for putting pressure on the Senate.

‘DEAD END’

The Kremlin echoed Republican arguments and scoffed at the impact of U.S. support.

“It is important for everyone to understand: the tens of billions of dollars that have been pumped into Ukraine have not helped it succeed on the battlefield,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

And Russia said it was making further progress on the ground, just as Ukraine’s freezing winter worsens and Moscow’s airstrikes on Ukraine’s cities increase.

In a shock to civilians behind the front lines, Ukraine’s largest mobile operator said it had been crippled by a “powerful hacker attack”.

But Washington insisted that Russia was actually paying an extraordinary price: Some 315,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in Ukraine since the war began, including 13,000 since October.

Russian forces have also lost about 2,200 of the 3,500 tanks they had before the conflict began, according to a declassified U.S. intelligence assessment shared with Congress.

But “Russia appears to believe that a winter military standoff will weaken Western support for Ukraine and ultimately give Russia an advantage despite Russian losses,” said Adrienne Watson, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council.

As the United States considers its future Ukraine policy, Polish Prime Minister-designate Donald Tusk called for a “full mobilization on the part of the free world, the West, in support of Ukraine.”