Zelenskyy straight-up said Ukraine is going to lose if Congress doesn't send more aid

• President Zelenskyy warned that Ukraine would lose the war if the US didn't send it more aid.
• House Republicans have been stalling on a $60 billion aid package for Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday that his country "will lose the war" against Russia if Congress does not act to send it more aid, Agence France-Presse reported.

"It is necessary to specifically tell Congress that if Congress does not help Ukraine, Ukraine will lose the war," he said, per AFP.

For months, House Republicans have stalled on a bill containing $60 billion in aid for Ukraine, stipulating that it should also include increased funding for security at the US southern border.

Without the support of Congress, it will be "difficult" for Ukraine to win, "even to stay," Zelenskyy said in a video meeting with fundraising supporters, including Mark Hamill and billionaire Richard Branson.

Zelenskyy's words came amid a bombardment of the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, which killed at least seven and injured more than 13, The Kyiv Post reported.

Zelenskyy's statement on Sunday was his starkest warning to date about the fate of Ukraine.

In late March, he told The Washington Post that Ukraine's army would have to contemplate a retreat "step by step, in small steps," if the US aid did not come through.

Experts told BI in February, when the bill initially passed in the Senate, that slow-walking the deal in the House would potentially cost Ukraine the war.

"If American aid disappears, the prospects of a Kremlin victory go way up," John Herbst, senior director of the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center and a former diplomat, told BI's Thibault Spirlet at the time.

Herbst said that continued European support could "conceivably" help Ukraine hold the line, but any faltering in that could result in major Russian gains.

NATO is seeking to take control of decision-making powers on future aid packages — normally led by the US — in an effort to limit the impact of a potential second Donald Trump presidency on the ongoing conflict.