Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with President Biden in Washington, D.C. On Tuesday.
This visit comes at a critical time as U.S. aid to the country at war is stuck on Capitol Hill.
It's President Zelenskyy's third visit to Washington since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Zelenskyy made the rounds, pleading for more aid in his country's fight. If the $110 billion supplemental funding bill is passed, Ukraine would get nearly $61 billion, and about $14 billion would go toward U.S. border security.
Like a frontline soldier, Steven Moore of Kviv, kept sharing accurate information with Congress and getting Ukranian's humanitarian items, they need.
"If we get them the weapons they need, they will win," Moore told 2 News. "With about five percent of the annual spending at the Pentagon, the Ukranians have degraded Putin's warfighting capability. This is the most effective money that the United States has ever spent against Russia. It's working."
As founder of the Ukraine Freedom Project, he's often in the U.S., specifically Tulsa, where one of his most prominent partner organizations is located. The Tulsa Rotary Medical Supply Network collects medical supplies to take to Ukraine.
With two wars overseas, a need to support partners in the Indo-Pacific and a border security crisis, President Biden requested a more than $110 billion supplemental national security bill from Congress, much to the dismay of Oklahoma U.S Senators Mullin and Lankford.
"Republicans are going to speak clearly to say we will not move to a national security bill that does security for other nations and ignores our own," Lankford said in a meeting with Congress last week.
Sen. Mullin echoed Lankford's thoughts.
"The administration is just bent on not addressing the crisis at our southern border," Mullin said.
Sen. Mullin says the U.S. border needs "real policy change," and Lankford pointed out there were more than 12,000 border crossings in a single day last Wednesday. Both senators agree - they won't vote yes on a spending bill until there's relief at the southern border.
"The people working at our border have no tools in their hands to be able to stop this issue," Lankford said.
But Moore said the U.S. will be involved in a war if funds stop.
"Right now, we have people in Ukraine and Israel who are willing to fight and die if we send them weapons, and if we don't do that, there will be a time when U.S. soldiers have to go to these places - to Taiwan and other places - because there will be a war and we will have to fight in," Moore said.
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