Senior Nordic and Baltic lawmakers visiting Washington on Thursday (8 February) expressed alarm at what they called a lack of urgency and a clear strategy by the US to help Ukraine defeat Moscow’s invasion.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will move to take more European territory if he wins in Ukraine, raising the danger of a conflict with the US-led NATO alliance that would carry immense human and economic costs, the lawmakers said.

“Guys, wake up,” Zygimantis Pavilionis, chairman of the Lithuanian parliament’s foreign affairs committee, said in comments directed at Democrats and Republicans. “Are you ready to defeat enemy No. 1 that is acting like the Hitler of today?”

The bleak assessment of how Washington is dealing with the threat posed by Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II underscored growing concerns across the Atlantic that US domestic political feuds are undercutting support for Ukraine.

The parliamentary foreign affairs committee chairs from Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and Norway spoke at the end of a two-day visit to press for new US aid as Ukraine struggles with ammunition shortages and Russian assaults. All but Sweden are NATO members.

A US congressional battle over immigration is stalling $61 billion in new military assistance.

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Republicans in the US Senate on Wednesday (7 February) defeated a bipartisan effort to bolster border security that had taken months to negotiate, but said they could still approve aid for Ukraine and Israel that had been tied up in the deal.

Delegation members said they met administration officials and lawmakers, but mainly sought to speak to Republicans resisting fresh aid. Only one sceptical Republican House of Representatives member agreed to see them, they said.

There “wasn’t a sense of urgency,” said Latvian parliamentarian Rihards Kols, adding it was “bizarre” that some American lawmakers urged the Europeans to engage more with US citizens to explain the stakes of a Russian victory.

“It is absolutely your job to do that,” he said he responded.

Several delegation members criticized President Joe Biden for opposing Ukraine’s admission to NATO and his strategy of “doing what it takes” to aid Kyiv.

“We don’t hear a clear (US) message how this war should end up,” said Marko Mihkelson, chair of the Estonian parliamentary foreign affairs committee.

Delegation members said they repeatedly heard Europe was not doing enough to help Ukraine. Kols called this a false assertion that “has really played into Putin’s cards” with narratives of war fatigue.