with the president of ukraine get his wish? meeting on capitol hill and at the white house, making the case that his country is fighting a losing battle with russia and italy delay from congress is a dream come true for vladimir putin. present biden privately telling supporters that benjamin netanyahu needs to change his strategy and his plans for gaza and that netanyahu himself needs to change. will biden's comments impact the relationship with israel? the lead live from des moines, iowa the head of a major event for the 2024 race seen in town hall tonight with 40 governor ron desantis, but did the fort a republican just miss out on a big endorsement? welcome to the lead. i'm jake tapper. we are live from greenview university in des moines, iowa. in a few hours, i'm going to be moderating a town hall with republican florida governor ron desantis as he feels question from voters lesson five weeks before the all-important this. he seeks to distance himself from the front runner former president donald trump while picking up his voters. he's also fending off a challenge from close competitor nikki haley who is about to score a major endorsement in new hampshire the first of the nation primary state. iowans have lots of questions from the governor about domestic and foreign policy, the economy, social security as to what inconsequential wars and united states finds itself in a critical inflation time. right now ukrainian president trenton is at the white house on an 11 hour invite from president biden as u.s. support for the nation hangs in the balance and republicans tie the destiny of $60 billion of new a to ukraine to u.s. border policy. more radical board policy change be on the $14 billion in additional funding in border security already included in the white house is proposed package. we are going to walk you through just what the republicans want in a moment but first today's visit to washington, much more sobering than zelensky's first trip there more than a year ago. a hero's welcome last december and today he was pleading with lawmakers as he grappled with a new stage of war where it is widely accepted that ukraine's spring counteroffensive has not succeeded and even failed. they told cnn that the road is understand ukraine is, quote/unquote, already losing without the usaid and unable to launch defensive operations with just enough ammunition to defend his current positions against russian aggressors. as morale among ukraine's rank tumbles and russia revels and what it sees as desperation, the president will have to enter the hard question, what is ukraine's plan? moments from now, president biden and zelensky will host a joint news conference and we will bring you that live as it happens but first we're covering all of this from the white house to ukraine, russia and back to capitol hill here cleta start right now with cnn's mj lee who live at the white house for us. mj, this is the third visit to washington since the war in ukraine program and both biden and zelinski agreed on the need for additional eight what are they hoping to achieve from this meeting? >> reporter: jay, i think by now it is abundantly clear to both president biden and president zelensky that the ukraine funding to both leaders want is not going to get done before the calendar year and even after president zelensky made the trip to capitol hill to make a personal appeal to lawmakers. lawmakers afterwards make it clear that they are going to leave time for the holidays before the supplemental package gets taken up, but look, i think that white house and u.s. officials would argue that this trip by president zelensky to washington, d.c. is not just narrowly about the issue of u.s. funding for ukraine but it is also about probably sending a message to the world that is watching, including russian president trenton with u.s. officials arguing that it sends an important message to russia at this moment in the war that the u.s. and international coalition that has back ukraine continues to back the countries mission of fighting back russia and they are also saying that this is important for sending a message to the would be aggressors that are taking cues from the visit like this as well. of course not helping president zelensky in the ukrainian people in terms of getting additional funding is a public opinion that has shifted here in the u.s. and even over the last year or so and really just bringing in a contrast with a different washington, d.c. president zelensky is visiting now compared to a year ago , the last time he met with president biden near the white house, jake. >> that's right. mj lee at the white house for us. thank you so much. russia has lost a staggering 87% of the total number of its active-duty troops it had prior to invading ukraine according to newly declassified u.s. intelligence. still, despite these heavy losses, seems determined to push forward and we are in separation in ukraine. jim is at the magic will for us. nick, let me start with you. what are you hearing from ukrainian forces, soldiers and commanders? >> reporter: a palpable sense of concern and anger, even, that the somewhat distant debate on the other side of the planet about whether or not border problems can be solved at the same time as ukraine's were here been funded, actually, potentially, could impact their decision to survive on the battlefield in the weeks or months ahead. remember ukraine's defense of its territory here is taking back a part of it from russian invading forces on western money. that is impacting morale here already, even if funding does magically somehow, forward. there are feelings of my ukrainian troops at that western unity is beginning to crumble, certainly and the other side of the issue here, they are joking that the chief of staff of the military see and to be at odds with zelensky the past couple weeks or so because it has not gone the way that the many had hoped in the west that the chief of the army had, in fact, and fired. the fact that that joke gets made publicly suggest that there a palpable intentions because of the failure of the counter defense. what comes next? a possibility that they may be able to do long-range attacks, but really, what is the broader plan to strike a victory against russia that means ukraine can feel it's happy with the situation and it might resort to diplomacy over. we seen incense attacks against civilian populations there but on the other side of the river, ukraine making a bit of a longshot and russian positions detached from their own supply lines on the other side of the river unclear that's going to go further with the disease. pressure on its front foot moving around the city. another sign of the amount of resources and lives they are willing to waste to take a town of minimal strategic importance but put this, very high tolerance of casualties here and great patience and really waiting for this moment of western frailty to finally emerge. here it is and he must be looking forward to this bleak winter ahead. jake. >> indeed. jim, republicans in congress encoding house speaker mike johnson say, they are not convinced that ukraine has a winning strategy going forward. tell us why you think it is thought, this counteroffensive? >> reporter: this is what u.s. military officials tell me. ukrainian forces ran into three really difficult minds of defense that russia had months to dig in and plan tens of thousands of landmines and dig into to repel the oncoming ukrainian advance and i'm told a couple issues emerged. one, a lot of these weapon systems, new weapon systems came to ukraine and they were only able to train up for a few weeks. new german tanks and u.s. tanks and other weapon systems. in addition to that, i'm told there has been some looking back now with 2020 vision think that the u.s. and its partners tried to turn ukrainian forces into something close to a u.s. military force capable of combined arms. that is ground operations, air operations. again, with a few weeks or a few months training him with years of training, this is difficult to break through and, of course, ukrainians have a tremendous advantage in terms of airpower. they just don't have it yet and the f-16s talked about, they are not going to come soon enough or significant enough numbers to change that but where ukrainians have had success is down here in the black sea. they have forced back the russian black sea feet by dozens of miles due to attacks from missiles, including the storm shadow missile, as well as the drones, which has opened up ceilings here which is crucial to the ukrainian economy, so it's not all defeat on the battlefield for ukraine but it is a really difficult time. reported 10 days ago that russia was going to be increasing targeting over these winter months and we seen that in the last several days. all these missiles coming in on ukrainian cities are tying to this moment. russia since its weakness and they want to increase the suffering among civilian populations. >> all right, jim shoot him in washington, d.c. and nick wash in separation, ukraine. house speaker mike johnson says that his conditions of tying any future aid to ukraine to this conservative order security proposal that passed the house. it seemed to have remained unchanged after meeting with ukrainian president zelensky earlier today. what exactly is in the republicans border security bill? >> reporter: it's a combination of measures, including new physical barriers that they want erected along the southern borders and the addition to changes to asylum policies and making it harder for migrants that are fleeing their countries to apply for asylum and receive asylum and changing parole policies and how the president can grant parole to broad groups of people and try to pair that authority back. as well as other measures such as, ensuring that migrants have to stay in mexico while the immigration proceedings are taking place in the united states and some other things that democrats have pushed back against him including detention centers for migrants who are crossing the border illegally. i talked to senate majority leader chuck schumer about some of these ideas and why they are not willing to accept some level of these proposals in order to get a deal to unlock ukraine aid. he indicated that they are willing to meet in the middle but he said that republican policies go too far. >> given what's happening at the border, why not agree to have stricter asylum policies in order to unlock aid to ukraine? >> bottom line is very simple. we are willing to meet in the middle and we have moved far more away from the president's original bill then they have moved and we went to come to a deal to meet people in the middle. everyone knows that hr 2 can't pass. it's a total, total application of everything gets trumps policy and american people don't like trumps policy. >> getting a deal has been incredibly difficult to ask over an issue that has divided the two parties for years and years and right now there is a meeting in the senate with top officials from demonstration, including the homeland security secretary, along with top senators from both parties try to see if there is any sort of agreement that can be reached in principle but even if there is, getting into both chambers and getting it all done wrapped up to the house and the senate by christmastime seems highly unlikely as the house is prepared to recess this week. the senate, potentially as well can get into next year. >> all right. thank you so much. let's bring in the cnn chief correspondent and anchor of the source, caitlin collins, to talk about this and much more. caitlin, president biden moments away from taking questions from reporters alongside president zelensky . what tough questions is the white house preparing for, do you think? >> reporter: one thing that lawmakers have been asking that they say they have not gotten clear answers to behind closed doors is, really, with the end goal here is going to look like and what the end of this is going to be but also, obviously, what this means for immigration. you cannot talk to any republican on capitol hill these days about what's happening in ukraine without them bringing of the u.s.- southern border. something that they feel like it's her moment that they have the leverage and you saw senator schumer there complaining that the democrats he feels has given some confession to move more to the middle is president biden himself said, willing to make significant concessions but not actually seeing something that republicans are ready to accept it and they feel like this is the only moment to get democrats to come and potentially vote for a bill that has those restrictions that they want something that would clampdown on the immigration numbers in exchange for this aid but really, j, what this is is a high stake sale pitch for president zelensky and president biden but so far after president zelensky's visit to where he was standing on capitol hill, it has not swayed a lot of opinions. basically all the republicans who we knew with her positions were going into that closed- door meeting this morning with president zelensky, had the same opinion coming out of it. some of them even left the meeting early and you can see, j, just how much he's trying to make this appeal. he did it in english earlier and he invoked ronald reagan and he certainly trying to get the senators to come around to this. the republican senators have not gotten there yet and there is more opposition in the republican-led house. >> that's just ukraine on biden's list. is also dealing with israel and he told supporters today privately that he thinks global support for israel's war against hamas in gaza is slipping in the prime minister netanyahu needs to change his government in some ways because it's difficult to arrive at any sort of state solution with the current government and he also agreed with netanyahu's plans for gaza after hamas has been destroyed to be at his satisfaction. >> i'm curious to see if he gets asked about this, jake, because this is the most public break that we've seen between president biden and from mr. benjamin netanyahu since october 7th and the thinking at the white house has been, if present biden is very strong with prime minister netanyahu in public that he can use that as leverage behind the scenes to get him to do or to at least listen and be receptive to u.s. pressure. right now what we are seeing is those quotes that you just cited there from present biden warning about what could happen for israel if they continue going down the path they've gone down what's going to happen with the global public opinion but you are seeing netanyahu break with biden and say, their plans and what they want to happen in gaza on day one after this war ends, it's simply not going to happen. he saying that the policy authority is not going to be in charge of gaza, which is something that you've heard president biden, secretary of state and vice president harrison others for this idea but so far, president biden has really left the more direct criticism to come from those other top officials of his and not he himself wasn't get like he is now. it will be fascinating to see what he says publicly here in front of the cameras as he's been quietly building up more and more criticism of what israel is doing. >> back to the ukraine aid, how much has formal president trump writ on the republican party playing into so many of these republicans blocking the aid and i don't know how many of them are doing it because actually want is for the policy to be part of it and how many are are doing it with border policy just as an excuse. they don't support for eight in ukraine. >> jay, how many times have we seen republicans in control on capitol hill and not gotten any significant immigration bill passed? immigration has always been a priority for them. i'm not saying that it is disingenuous that they don't care about the border and we see that it's true. the numbers of the borders and the crossings are skyrocketing in recent weeks and we see that playing out and i don't think anyone in washington would deny that the southern border is a problem and it needs to be fixed but you are seeing them tied directly to do this in a way that we haven't seen and they were already fading on their public support for ukraine. you see was mormon marjorie green same as she does should be tied to the border and that it should not be brought to the for them to vote on it and she said, he said thank speaker got up and bringing it to the floor, giving how high the opposition is for the republican party and certainly in the house and a lot of that stems from president trump and they are watching public opinion slip away and they are taking advantage of that, jake. >> all right, caitlin collins. thank you so much. you see the podiums and the microphones ready to go. we should see president biden soon at the white house, alongside ukrainian president volodymyr zelensky. their joint news conference should begin any moment now and we are going to bring that to you live and this programming no, we are in iowa right now at townhall the florida governor ron desantis for just a few hours away from that and it's live tonight at 9:00 p.m. eastern only here on cnn and desantis will take questions from republican caucus goers and we will squeeze in a quick break and we will be right back. in russia, they said that they are watching the biden- tran11 meeting very closely. cnn matthew chance it's in the russians capital. vladimir putin must be feeling pretty good watching the u.s. debate over whether to send ukraine more military aid and hearing all the skepticism from republicans. >> reporter: yes, i think he probably is very satisfied for the russian leader to since that western resolve and u.s. resolve may be shaking a little bit, but i think there is awareness that this could still go either way. this is being held predominantly, but not exclusively, by the domestic issue and the situation on the southern border and there is still, despite misgiving on some republicans able to support for ukraine, there is a lot of awareness of that. you look at russian-state terrorism and they are pretty calling this visit and they love to radical volodymyr zelensky and paint him as a puppet who has strings being pulled by washington and talking about how he's going cap and hand it, essentially, begging for more money in washington for a way to survive. they are watching this closely and they would be saying that if they didn't attach significance to this meeting because they know all this decisions because the billions of dollars that ukraine has already received in military aid have had a devastating impact on the battlefield when it comes to russian troops and we heard that estimate from that intelligence report that has come to us that 87% of russians armed forces had been destroyed as a result of this conflict and, of course, if there are billions more, in terms of military aid given to ukraine, well, that's going to have a more of an impact as well and that is going to cause a political price in the future. >> all right. matthew channon russian for us., to bring in two cnn conservators, former cnn moscow borough chief jill darty in new york, staff writer evan aust knows. evan has reached. what you think hurts president biden more in 2024? would it be failing to deliver on ukraine aid or would it be conceding to republicans on their desired border policy? >> in some ways, you know, these are issues that it's his responsibility to lay out the stakes. i think that is what you are likely to hear from him and we know from paul's that americans are more inclined to spend money on our own southern border than foreign wars. americans are exhausted by it and it's when of the issues that joe biden ran on in 2020 and at the same time, he has made a case and for much of the last few years, americans have believed pretty emphatically that it was important to try and stop vladimir putin from going across europe. i think what of the things that you should look for is for him to, essentially, lay out that this was his bat. this was, eventually americans would be divided and no longer support this war and for that reason, it is a false choice to say it is one or the other. you can do both and the white house authority said, we are willing to compromise on border, but we have to be able to do two things at once. >> yeah. he's willing to go all the way and keep pushing and pushing but, jill, he's lost 87% of his fighting force. biden has been way tougher on vladimir putin than donald trump was and still, this republican-led holdup of usa to ukraine must feel like christmas came early for vladimir putin. >> reporter: absolutely. that is his idea. his idea. we are hearing it today from that intelligence report that was released. the road support and he's done it in two different ways. he's done it with europe and the united states trying to divide them and now, almost without his try just sitting there, he has u.s. congress divided about this between the white house and congress, so, of course he's going to be happy and i think it's really important to realize that the significance and the implications of having vladimir putin in being perceived as winning this are really great. it's not a border issue in that sense. this is an international issue in which the united states would be perceived as a country that cannot keep its commitments and by merripen will draw conclusions about this about the united states being week and about nato being week and when vladimir putin thinks people are we, he pushes father forward and so he will be, in my opinion, much more aggressive and he will try to take chances and other countries in europe. >> evan, there is a theory on the order funding provisions and an article today titled, why the gop doesn't want a deal on ukraine in the border saying, suppose republicans did extract a big border succession and they got everything they wanted and their policy worked in the flow of asylum-seekers really do taper off dramatically in 2024. would not the result of that success the only to strengthen biden's reelection chances and hurt donald trump's? maybe the reason democrats are having such difficulty is that many republicans are committed to now, regardless of what the offer is and i'm not saying i subscribe to that theory, but how do you think the white house can get out of this when assuming republicans really are not willing to compromise on this border provision debate at all? >> i do think the democrats are concerned. you heard house speaker mike johnson say today that really all that has to be done here is for the white house and for democrats in the senate to take up the house republican bill on immigration, which is worth remembering, received a total of zero democratic votes and that's not a position that is inclined towards compromise. you heard the president say, we are willing to compromise on this. they are are you talking about changing the standards by which they can get asylum, so there is room here and i think you are also likely to hear from democrats that they are confident that in the end, the trump era immigration program, which is in many respects, what is being reintroduced here, was not popular. is not popular with voters. as early as the 2018 midterms and it's not popular with them now and i think that democrats think they are on solid ground when that comes to that issue but they want to get some version of this done. >> i don't know how well they have message that though. i don't know how they got into detail about what they actually object to that the republicans are proposing. evan and jill, stay with us. right now, we are, of course, standby for the joint news conference with president biden and ukrainian president volodymyr zelensky. we are going to take a quick break . we are expecting it to begin at any moment. stay with us. first time i connected with kim, she told me that her husband had passed. and that he took care of all of the internet connected devices in the home. i told her, “i'm here to take care of you.” connecting with kim... made me reconnect with my mom. it's very important to keep loved ones close. we know that creating memories with loved ones brings so much joy to your life. a family trip to the team usa training facility. i don't know how to thank you. i'm here to thank you. any second we are expecting president biden in the ukrainian president volodymyr zelensky to walk out of the stores. you see to the right of your screen and begin a joint news conference in the focus will be on ukraine's need for additional u.s. aid in order. while we are waiting, let's bring back moscow bureau chief jill darty and new yorker staff writer evan. evan, we should note this is all coming against this very challenging foreign-policy backdrop for president biden. not just about ukraine but also in terms of his realm we just heard behind closed doors he was voicing some of his frustrations and some of his disagreements with benjamin netanyahu talking about how he thinks the netanyahu government is not willing to delivery state resolution, which is the only way he sees is basically ending and how also they disagree on what comes next for gaza after the war against hamas is over and netanyahu said that he wants the forces to stay in other president leaders do not want that. >> reporter: that's a relationship that has been challenging for a very long time. joe biden will tell you that he has a photograph that biden gave him when he was a young senator in which he described it with the message of, i love you, but i don't agree with you on anything. there is a way in which this relationship, particularly under the pressures and complexities of this world were only going to get harder and when the president talks about something the way that he did today, that is with the full knowledge, frankly, that is not going to stay behind closed doors. it is a way of sending a message to the israeli government to say, we need you to be listening to what we are saying. we are concerned about what happens that's not surest what's happening in southern gaza. when biden talks about a two state solution, he means it and this is the hardest thing for the two sides to be able to begin to speak more frankly about but biden is beginning to do it and i think you should expect to hear more from that. >> jill, would you think that russian president vladimir putin is going to be looking out for as he watches president biden change his tone of it on israel because fight them are put in, even though he has met with netanyahu in the past, he has been pretty strongly voicing support for hamas even the finer buttons on background includes some pretty strong action against islamic terrorist in his neck of the woods. >> yes, you know, jake, they look back at the old soviet union and when the soviet union supported liberation movements and so vladimir putin, in the way that he is doing in so many different places, he is exploiting that to say that the united states is on the side of imperial, colonial powers and that would, in his mind, equal israel. i think that he wants a relationship with the global south, the developing world more at this point and more than anything, he wants to score points against the united states and against biden and biden is in a very serious situation. >> evan, i know that you know that president biden and his entire team that has been managing the middle east portfolio are very frustrated with the israel defense forces and they keep telling them to do more to avoid civilian casualties into do more to let in aid and they've been very disappointed at the degree in which the netanyahu government have said with her actions, no. you know? i see this as part of, in some ways, larger context, jake, that is directly related to the press conference we are going to hear about. joe biden has framed this moment in global affairs as an attack in so many ways on free societies. saw the attack on october 7th as an attack on a free society and he believes that vladimir putin's attack on ukraine is in its own way, a war against democracy. his goal, more broadly and i think we are going to hear that a bit today, is to try to bring people back to remind them of why it was that they felt so committed to this war in ukraine when it started and to also remind indirectly, i suppose, the leadership in israel that he has to put this into a logical context for americans and if this begins to feel too far from the goal of protecting a free society, then he has a harder time making a case for it at home. this is, inevitably, all part of a broader project. >> evan and jill stay with us, we are going to squeeze in a quick break and we will be right back and only the two presidents will come out and start speaking to the press. any second when that happens, we will be r right therere . any moment now we are expected to hear from president biden and ukraine's president volodymyr zelensky in a joint news conference at the white house. we're going to take you to that as soon as it begins but until then , i am here in iowa for a reason. we're covering the 2024 race and there was a major, major pending endorsement, which tops our 2020 for the today and sources are telling cnn that republican governor of new hampshire the first in the nation primary state will throw his support behind former ambassador and south carolina governor nikki haley and that will happen tonight at a rally in his great onset of new hampshire and the goal here, so the republican front runner donald trump who continues to dominate the 2024 race. let me bring in just kidding. we are here in iowa, the first in the nation caucus state, ahead of tonight's cnn town hall with 40 governor ron desantis , which you will be covering. the only person i think it was running against was donald trump and he thinks that donald trump would be bad. it does seem as though desantis is putting all his eggs in the iowa basket. >> reporter: that is exactly right and if you talk to people around him, that will say as much. he's been with a lot of staff here and all 99 counties and he keeps coming back here. i feel like this they really good spot for him because his message said resonate with these voters that make up such a large block of the republican party in iowa and their whole thought is, if you do well in iowa and get all this momentum and that can change the trajectory of the race and you talk to nikki haley's people and chris cristi's people and they think they can do that in new hampshire but they have put a lot of their efforts here in iowa and that's why tonight is particularly important for 40 governor ron desantis because he really wants to do well here. >> yes, he has five weeks to turn it around and wanted the things is interesting also, we were talking to tim alberta a few days ago about the new era of white, evangelical christians and he said, that the old era is over were somebody like him or huckabee and people who were very conservative and lived their religion. you know? they didn't just talk it. >> a southern baptist. >> yeah. >> could come here and do really well in iowa and that would help them in their presidential campaign, although neither of them went on to become the nominee that we are in a different era and alberta's thesis is, that a lot of like christian evangelicals, they understand donald trump is not of them, but he's not religious. i think that's fair to say, but that he is a -- i'm paraphrasing alberta now but he is a barbarian to fight the barbarians. he is their warrior. >> right. i think that within that faith too, they look at somebody who has been persecuted like they are seeing him being persecuted and that feels familiar with them into your point, he is going out and acting on their behalf, even if he is not what of them and we have that that came out here yesterday that gave us the snapshot of where we are five weeks out and he's at 51%. >> 51% is desantis and 16% but we are five weeks out. anything could happen but that is a big leap. >> a big hill. >> think you so much. we are standing by waiting for president biden and the ukrainian president to come out for a joint news conference and they appear to be running on biden time. a bit behind schedule. we will bring that to live as soon as they step out and we will squeeze in a quick break. the other major event with the consequence omit today by house republicans on efforts to impeach or begin an impeachment inquiry into president biden. stay with us. i'i'm lauren fox on cacapit hill, , this i is cnn. >> bringing you live images from the white house, you see microphones ready and the podiums all dusted off, we're standing by for the joint news conference set to begin between president biden and vladimir zelensky, president biden is pushing for more ukrainian aid, house republicans at two major step towards possibly beginning a road of impeaching president biden, we are on capitol hill. melanie, back when kevin mccarthy was speaker, correct me if i'm wrong, he opened some sort of impeachment inquiry. what is going on now? >> that's exactly right, this impeachment inquiry has been going on for several months after former speaker kevin mccarthy unilaterally opened this back in september in part because of the time they did not have been as very republican votes to be able to do so, now republicans are making this new push to formalize their inquiry because they say they want to strengthen their hand in court when they tried to enforce subpoenas, it looks like that resolution is set to pass as almost the entire republican conference has lined up behind that resolution, but that does not mean the votes are going to necessarily be there for impeachment itself and that is because key moderates say they have yet to see any evidence of high crimes or misdemeanors and he also told our colleagues that he does not think it is ultimately going to be there while he does back this idea of opening the inquiry to get all the facts, he thinks it is best to let voters decide, not members of congress. >> all right, menno -- melanie. i really appreciate it, we continue to standby at the white house with president biden and ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy. we will bring that to you as soon as it happens, stay with us, we will squeeze in a quick break. (singing )i'll be home for christmas you can plan on me. please have snow and mistletoe. and presents on the tree. kids at shriner's hospitals for children are able to go home and be with their families for the holidays. and that's only possible because of the monthly donations from people like you. thanks to a generous donor every dollar you give can help twice as many kids like me and have double the impact. with your gift of just $19 a month, only $0.63 a day. we'll send you this adorable love to the rescue blanket as a thank you. well, to the lead i'm jake tapper, our breaking news this hour, at any moment we hear from president joe biden and ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy, the leader is in the nation's capital to try and . additional aid for his war-torn country which is badly needed to fend off the attack by russia, it is a tall order, billions of dollars are tied up with lawmakers have something of an impasse over f