Senate Democrats will stick together on this week’s vote to push their voting and election reform bill past Republican opposition. Then they’ll focus on isolating two of their own centrists.

The Democratic caucus is pressing forward with laying blame on Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) for the party’s failure to advance sweeping elections reform, thanks to their resistance to weakening the filibuster. The move carries considerable risk, given that Sinema and Manchin will be essential to any further success the party can muster this year — particularly on any resuscitation of President Joe Biden’s economic agenda.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who has been speaking to Manchin on rules changes, said Democrats have tried to come up with a proposal that’s consistent with his and Sinema’s positions and that they aren’t worried the vote will alienate the two centrists.

“I was not a negotiator of the infrastructure bill — I was so happy they were, and I praised them for it, and I voted for it, and it’s going to be great,” Kaine said. “This voting bill is as important or more to many of us than the infrastructure bill. The time is nigh for a decision.”

As the chamber returned after Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer started debate on House-passed voting rights legislation and warned that “the eyes of the nation will be watching what happens this week in the United States Senate.”

Democrats are pushing ahead on one of the party’s signature issues despite the fact that they lack the votes to pass the legislation in Congress and face an uphill battle.

“Senate Democrats are under no illusion that we face difficult odds, especially when virtually every Senate Republican is staunchly against legislation protecting the right to vote,” Schumer said. “But I want to be clear: when this chamber confronts a question this important, one so vital to our country, so vital to our ideals, so vital to the future of our democracy, you don’t slide it off the table and say, never mind.”

The New York Democrat on Tuesday moved to force a vote to break a filibuster on the voting legislation, which could take place as soon as Wednesday if there is agreement. If there is no agreement, then the vote would take place Thursday.

The Biden administration is weighing new options, including providing more arms to Ukraine to resist a Russian occupation, to try to raise the costs for Russian President Vladimir Putin should he decide to invade the country.

The discussions, described by multiple sources familiar with them, reflect a sense of pessimism in the administration following last week’s diplomatic talks with Russian officials that yielded no breakthroughs and as Russia has continued to raise its force levels in the last few days.

In addition to considering how to help the Ukrainian military and government fend off an invasion, the US is evaluating options for bolstering Ukrainian forces’ ability to resist a potential Russian occupation. That includes potentially providing the Ukrainian Army with additional ammunition, mortars, Javelin anti-tank missiles, and anti-aircraft missile systems, which would likely come from NATO allies, a senior US official told CNN.

The news comes ahead of a face to face meeting between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russia Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva on Friday. A senior State Department official said the scheduled meeting “suggests that perhaps diplomacy is not dead.”

Facing stark criticism from civil rights leaders, senators return to Capitol Hill under intense pressure to change their rules and break a Republican filibuster that has hopelessly stalled voting legislation.

The Senate is set to launch debate Tuesday on the voting bill with attention focused intently on two pivotal Democrats — Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia — who were singled out with a barrage of criticism during Martin Luther King Jr. Day events for their refusal to change what civil rights leaders call the “Jim Crow filibuster.”

Martin Luther King III, the son of the late civil rights leader, compared Sinema and Manchin to the white moderate his father wrote about during the civil rights battles of the 1950s and 1960s — a person who declared support for the goals of Black voting rights but not the direct actions or demonstrations that ultimately led to passage of the landmark legislation.

“History will not remember them kindly,” the younger King said, referring to Sinema and Manchin by name.

This will be the fifth time the Senate will try to pass voting legislation this Congress, as elections officials warn that new state laws are making it more difficult to vote in some parts of the country.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to Ukraine and Germany this week as the Russian threat toward Ukraine continues to loom.

In Kyiv, Blinken will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba “to reinforce the United States’ commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” according to State Department spokesman Ned Price.

In Berlin, Blinken will “discuss recent diplomatic engagements with Russia and joint efforts to deter further Russian aggression against Ukraine, including Allies’ and partners’ readiness to impose massive consequences and severe economic costs on Russia.”

Blinken will meet with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, followed by a meeting with the Transatlantic Quad, which also includes the UK and France, according to Price.

Republicans are feeling so good about their chances of retaking Congress this fall that they’re already debating their governing relationship with President Joe Biden. And they’re divided over how to handle their potential big wins.

With Biden and Democrats floundering right now, the GOP is increasingly favored to vault back to partial power in Washington by flipping the House, and potentially also the Senate, in the coming midterms. What comes next isn’t quite clear: Some Republicans are mulling ways to collaborate with Biden on issues like trade, energy or tech; others are prepared to go scorched-earth as their party eyes the bigger prize of retaking the White House in 2024.

The GOP’s pro-bipartisanship camp may not have a lot of space in 2023 to work with the president: funding the government and raising the debt ceiling will be a major challenge, given how often House and Senate Republicans diverge on critical pieces of legislation. And former President Donald Trump will continue trying to influence the party’s direction, criticizing Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell and anyone else who steps out of line with his combative politics.

Given those dynamics, there’s no unified GOP agenda for voters to examine this fall — other than an up-or-down vote on Biden and congressional Democrats’ record. Republicans aren’t sure what will happen next if they actually win.