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BBC HomepageSkip to contentAccessibility HelpYour accountLiveNotificationsHomeNewsSportWeatheriPlayerSoundsBitesizeMore menuMore menuSearch BBCHomeNewsSportWeatheriPlayerSoundsBitesizeCBBCCBeebiesFoodClose menuBBC NewsMenuHomeIsrael-Gaza warCost of LivingWar in UkraineClimateUKWorldBusinessPoliticsCultureMoreTechScienceHealthFamily & EducationIn PicturesNewsbeatBBC VerifyDisabilityWorldAfricaAsiaAustraliaEuropeLatin AmericaMiddle EastUS & CanadaUS Senate passes $95bn package of aid for Ukraine, Israel and TaiwanPublished4 minutes agoShareclose panelShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, Getty ImagesBy Madeline HalpertBBC NewsThe US Senate has approved a long-awaited $95bn (£75.2bn) aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan after months of political wrangling.While Democrats were in favour of passing the bill, Republicans were divided and previously voted it down.The package includes $60bn for Kyiv, $14bn for Israel’s war against Hamas and $10bn for humanitarian aid in conflict zones, including in Gaza.Lawmakers voted 70 to 29 to approve the package. The bill will now go to the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, where its fate remains uncertain. The package, which also includes more than $4bn in funds for Indo-Pacific allies, passed the Senate despite criticism from Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson and former President Donald Trump. In the end, 22 Republicans voted for the legislation including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. “History settles every account,” Mr McConnell said in a statement following the vote. “And today, on the value of American leadership and strength, history will record that the Senate did not blink.”Ukraine’s president also said he was “grateful” to senators for passing it.”For us in Ukraine, continued US assistance helps to save human lives from Russian terror. It means that life will continue in our cities and will triumph over war,” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. The vote came after an all-night Senate session during which several Republicans made speeches criticising the measure. The aid package is a stripped down version of a $118bn package that Senate Republicans voted down last week. Republicans had initially demanded that any foreign aid be tied to more security measures at the southern border. But after Mr Trump came out against the measure, Republicans were divided on the package. Some lawmakers suggested that border security measures could be added back into the current version of the legislation. Mr Johnson suggested in a statement on Monday night that the new bill would not pass the House without such provisions. “House Republicans were crystal clear from the very beginning of discussions that any so-called national security supplemental legislation must recognise that national security begins at our own border,” he said.Mr Johnson claimed lawmakers “should have gone back to the drawing board” with the legislation to focus on border security provisions. Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, meanwhile, hailed the passage of the bill on Tuesday. He said the Senate was “telling Putin he will regret the day he questioned America’s resolve”.The US is one of the largest providers of aid to Ukraine. The White House asked Congress months ago to pass a bill that included foreign aid. This could be Congress’s last shot at passing Ukraine aid for the foreseeable future, and Ukraine has warned that it may not be able to successfully defend itself against Russia without Washington’s backing. Related TopicsMexico–US borderDonald TrumpUS politicsUS CongressUnited StatesUkraineMore on this storyBiden and Trump trade blame as border bill faltersPublished6 days agoSenate advances aid package for Ukraine and IsraelPublished4 days agoTop StoriesLabour withdraws support for Rochdale candidate after Israel remarksPublished2 hours agoUS Senate passes $95bn support package for alliesPublished4 minutes agoExclusive video: Death and trauma at every turn for Gaza’s exhausted paramedics. VideoExclusive video: Death and trauma at every turn for Gaza’s exhausted paramedicsPublished12 hours agoFeatures10 things we spotted in the Oscars class photoWhy do we eat pancakes on Shrove Tuesday? 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[ad_1] After months of wrangling, the long-promised aid is likely to face serious opposition from House Republicans.
![BBC HomepageSkip to contentAccessibility HelpYour accountLiveNotificationsHomeNewsSportWeatheriPlayerSoundsBitesizeMore menuMore menuSearch BBCHomeNewsSportWeatheriPlayerSoundsBitesizeCBBCCBeebiesFoodClose menuBBC NewsMenuHomeIsrael-Gaza warCost of LivingWar in UkraineClimateUKWorldBusinessPoliticsCultureMoreTechScienceHealthFamily & EducationIn PicturesNewsbeatBBC VerifyDisabilityWorldAfricaAsiaAustraliaEuropeLatin AmericaMiddle EastUS & CanadaTucker Carlson interview: Fact-checking Putin’s ‘nonsense’ historyPublished1 hour agoShareclose panelShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, ReutersImage caption, Mr Putin began the interview by claiming that that 862 was the year of the “establishment of the Russian state”By Ido VockBBC NewsUS talk show host Tucker Carlson’s interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin began with a rambling half-hour lecture on the history of Russia and Ukraine. Mr Carlson, frequently appearing bemused, listened as Mr Putin expounded at length about the origins of Russian statehood in the ninth century, Ukraine as an artificial state and Polish collaboration with Hitler. It is familiar ground for Mr Putin, who infamously penned a 5000-word essay entitled “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians” in 2021, which foreshadowed the intellectual justification the Kremlin offered for its invasion of Ukraine less than a year later. To historians, the litany of claims made by Mr Putin are nonsense – representing nothing more than a selective abuse of history to justify the ongoing war in Ukraine.Regardless of the historical realities, none of Putin’s assertions would form a legal justification for his invasion. A state-centred narrativeMr Putin began the interview by claiming that that 862 was the year of the “establishment of the Russian state”. This was the year that Rurik, a Scandinavian prince, was invited to rule over the city of Novgorod, the capital of the Rus – the people who would eventually develop into today’s Russians. Mr Putin contrasts what he claims is the unbroken tradition of Russian statehood dating back to the ninth century with the modern “invention” of Ukraine – a country he insists was “created” as late as the twentieth century. Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, An engraving of Prince Rurik in 862But Sergey Radchenko, a historian at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, says the president’s claim is “a complete falsehood”. “Vladimir Putin is trying to construct a narrative backwards, saying Russia as a state began its development in the ninth century. You could equally say that Ukraine as a state began its development in the ninth century, exactly with the same kind of evidence and documents.”He’s trying to use certain historical facts to construct a state-centred narrative that would favour Russia as opposed to any alternative agglomerations.”Putin says deal can be reached to free US reporter Putin takes charge as Carlson gives free rein to KremlinThe former Fox star interviewing Vladimir PutinRonald Suny, a professor at the University of Michigan, says the Rus was made up of “a bunch of bandits, who burned their own capital repeatedly”. He adds that Mr Putin is repeating an “established mythology made up at certain points in the past by Muscovite tsars who trace their lineage back to Rurik”.”This mythology was crystallised in Moscow to justify their imperial hold over Ukraine.”A ‘special ethnic group’Mr Putin told Tucker Carlson that by the seventeenth century, when Poland came to rule over parts of present-day Ukraine, they introduced the idea that the population of those areas “was not exactly Russians. Because they lived on the fringe, they were Ukrainians.””Originally the word Ukrainian meant that the person was living on the outskirts of the state, along the fringes.” But Anita Prazmowska, a professor emerita at the LSE, refutes this. She says while a national consciousness emerged later among Ukrainians than other central European nations, there were Ukrainians during that period. “[Vladimir Putin] is using a twentieth-century concept of the state based on the protection of a defined nation, as something that goes back. It doesn’t.”Mr Suny says that while it may be true that Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians “came from the same stock … through time, they developed into different peoples.” ‘New Russia’Mr Putin claims that areas in the south and east of Ukraine “had no historical connection with Ukraine whatsoever”. Conquered from the Ottoman Empire by the Russian Empress Catherine the Great in the seventeenth century, the Russian president says that means these lands are in fact rightfully Russian. Mr Putin later refers to them using the seventeenth-century term “Novorossiya” – New Russia. Mr Suny points out that the inhabitants of these lands when they were conquered by Russia were neither Russian nor Ukrainian, but Ottoman, Tatar or Cossacks – Slavic peasants who had fled to the frontiers. Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Catherine the Great conquered parts of present-day UkraineBut claiming that these territories are in reality rightfully Russian serves Mr Putin’s interests, as they are precisely the territories that Russia is attempting to conquer from Ukraine during the now decade-long conflict with its neighbour. So-called Novorossiya includes Crimea – illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014. New Russia also covers areas around Kherson, Mariupol and Bakhmut, which Mr Putin declared part of Russia in 2022.An ‘artificial state’Mr Putin went on to claim that “Ukraine is an artificial state that was shaped at [Joseph] Stalin’s will,” arguing that Ukraine was created by the Soviet leadership in the 1920s and received lands that it had no historical claim to. In a sense, he is correct, says Prof Radchenko. The Soviet leadership drew up the borders of Soviet republics “almost like the Western colonial powers drew up borders in Africa – kind of randomly.”But that does not mean that Ukrainians did not exist.”More broadly, Mr Radchenko denies Mr Putin’s claims that Ukraine is not a real country because it was formed in its modern form in the twentieth century. “Any country is a fake country, in the sense that countries are created as a result of a historical process.”Russia was created as a result of decisions taken by the Russian tsars, such as the colonisation of Siberia, which came at the considerable expense of the local population.”If Ukraine is a fake country, then so is Russia.” ‘Collaborating with Hitler’Perhaps Mr Putin’s most inflammatory claim was regarding Poland. Mr Putin claimed that Poland – which was invaded by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939 – “collaborated with Hitler”. The Russian president told his interviewer that by refusing to cede an area of Poland called the Danzig Corridor to Hitler, Poland “went too far, pushing Hitler to start World War Two by attacking them”. For Prof Prazmowska, President Putin’s interpretation of history is a flawed reading of the historical record. She says that while it is true that there were diplomatic contacts between Poland and the Nazis – the first treaty Hitler signed after coming to power was a non-aggression pact with Poland in 1934 – Mr Putin is conflating diplomatic outreach to a threatening neighbour with collaboration. “The accusation that the Poles were collaborating is nonsense,” says Mrs Prazmowska.”You can’t interpret these things as if this were collaboration with Nazi Germany, because it just so happened that the Soviet Union also signed treaties with Germany [at the same time].”In September 1939, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union invaded Poland according to the terms of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact signed between both states earlier that year. More on this storyPutin takes charge as Carlson gives free rein to KremlinPublished5 hours agoWhat do Putin and Carlson gain from Kremlin interview?Published15 hours agoTop StoriesLive. 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