Lawmakers to vote soon on stalled Ukraine aid

The US House of Representatives will vote on foreign aid bills - including one for Ukraine - on Saturday, Speaker Mike Johnson has announced.

In a note sent to House Republicans, Mr Johnson said that four bills would be brought to the floor, in addition to a separate one on border security.

The legislation will include funding for Israel as well as the Indo-Pacific, but the highest political stakes come with the Ukraine aid.

Republican opposition has stalled potential aid for Ukraine for months, with members of the party's right-wing pushing to tie it to stricter immigration measures.

Some of those lawmakers, including Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of Mr Johnson's biggest critics, had already decried his plan on Wednesday. With Republicans holding their smallest majority in the House in decades, Mr Johnson may have to appeal to Democrats to get the bills passed.

The announcement - which was texted to House members on Wednesday - comes over two months after a $95bn bill combining the various aid packages passed the US Senate.

The new plan breaks the aid packages into separate bills, which Mr Johnson said include "a loan structure for aid, and enhanced strategy and accountability".

A fourth planned piece of legislation folds in the "Rebuilding Economic Prosperity and Opportunity for Ukrainians", or Repo Act, which would allow seized Russian assets to be given to Ukraine and a bill meant to crack down on TikTok and its parent company ByteDance.

Mr Johnson said he would then bring up a separate bill aimed at strengthening security measures at the US-Mexico border.

That would include the "core components" legislation known as HR2, which was passed by the Republican-controlled House last year over significant Democratic opposition, he said. HR2 stalled in the Democrat-majority Senate.

Members of the staunchly conservative "Freedom Caucus" said that they would oppose Mr Johnson's foreign aid plan, in large part because it lacked border security measures.

"The Republican Speaker of the House is seeking a rule to pass almost $100 billion in foreign aid - while unquestionably, dangerous criminals, terrorists [and] fentanyl pour across our border," Freedom Caucus member and Texas Republican Chip Roy wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

"The border 'vote' in this package is a watered-down dangerous cover vote," Mr Roy added. "I will oppose."

Mr Johnson has come under increasing pressure from the right-wing of the Republican Party over the foreign aid packages and his negotiations with Democrats.

Two conservative representatives, Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie and Georgia's Ms Greene, have called on him to step down or face a motion to vacate, which could lead to his ouster from the Speaker's position.

"You are seriously out of step with Republicans by continuing to pass bills dependent on Democrats," Ms Greene wrote in a post on X directed at him on Wednesday. "Everyone sees through this."

Mr Johnson, however, has vowed to push ahead with the foreign aid, telling reporters earlier this week that "the world is watching us to see how we react."

"We have terrorists and tyrants and terrible leaders around the world like Putin and Xi and in Iran, and they're watching to see if America will stand up for its allies and our interests around the globe," he said. "And we will."

He has also shrugged off the threat of being ousted from his position.

"I don't spend my time worrying about motions to vacate," he said on Monday evening. "We're having to govern here, and we're going to do our job."