House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has rejected an invitation from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to visit Ukraine.
The California Republican told CNN he felt no need to visit the war-ravaged country to formulate his position on funding the Kyiv regime amid the war effort.
"I will continue to get my briefings and others, but I don't have to go to Ukraine or Kyiv to see it. And my point has always been, I won't provide a blank check for anything," he said. "Let's be very clear about what I said: no blank checks, OK? So, from that perspective, I don't have to go to Ukraine to understand where there's a blank check or not."
The then-minority leader vowed during the 2022 midterms that a Republican-led Congress would not write a "blank check" to the country amid criticism of the Biden administration's open-handed approach to providing the nation with aid against Russia.
Zelensky, for his part, had hoped to court the California Republican with the aim of changing his mind and securing continued support for his nation.
"I think that Speaker McCarthy, he never visited Kyiv or Ukraine, and I think it would help him with his position," Zelensky told CNN in an interview set to air Wednesday evening. "Mr. McCarthy, he has to come here to see how we work, what's happening here, what war caused us, which people are fighting now, who are fighting now. And then after that, make your assumptions."
McCarthy's refusal to visit Ukraine comes as the Muscovite forces appear poised to seize the strategic city of Bakhmut as part of a larger offensive in the Donbass region. Zelensky has warned that the city's fall would leave an "open road" for Russia to seize key cities in the country's east. NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg on Wednesday indicated the possibility that the city may fall "in the coming days."
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