Hours after Congress passed a U.S. spending bill without additional funding for Ukraine — in order to avoid a government shutdown — President Joe Biden urged House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to follow up quickly with support.

Ukrainian officials said they were confident that bipartisan support would keep U.S. aid flowing. But others saw the move to exclude Ukraine funding as a worrying sign.

Arayik Harutyunyan led the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh between May 2020 and last month, when the separatist government said it would dissolve itself by the end of the year after a three-decade bid for independence.

Tensions have soared following the violence in northern Kosovo last Sunday involving heavily armed Serb gunmen and Kosovo police officers.

The Biden administration sounded the alarm on Serbia’s troop buildup near the border with Kosovo, urging the government to pull back its forces and hold accountable those responsible for a shootout that killed a Kosovar police officer and three other people.

With virtually the entire population of Armenians fleeing from Nagorno-Karabakh, refugees are voicing rage over the loss of their homeland and accusing Russia of betrayal after peacekeepers sent by Moscow failed to protect them.

Pentagon officials are making a last-minute lobbying push Saturday on Capitol Hill to prevent Congress from stripping aid to Ukraine from a funding agreement.

Ukraine hosted an international defense industry conference as part of a government effort to ramp up weapons production within the country to repel Russia’s full-scale invasion and reduce foreign dependence on arms deliveries.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday insisted that the residents of four Ukrainian regions that Moscow illegally annexed a year ago “made their choice — to be with their Fatherland.”

Robert Fico opposes EU sanctions on Russia, questions whether Ukraine can force out the invading Russian troops and wants to block Ukraine from joining NATO.