The undisputed leader of the Republicans in the Senate, a veteran of American politics and an ardent defender of aid to Ukraine, Mitch McConnell, created a surprise on Wednesday by announcing that he will leave his post in November, according to AFP.

“I stand before you today (…) to tell you that the current mandate will be the last as the Republican leader,” the 82-year-old elected president said in a speech in Congress, Agerpres writes.

This unexpected announcement was met with a standing ovation from elected officials of both parties in the semi-circle of the upper house.

However, Mitch McConnell has not said whether he will leave his seat as Kentucky’s senator, which he has held since 1985.

The leader of the Republicans in the Senate since 2015, this subtle connoisseur of the secrets of power was thus at the forefront of the fight against the policies of the administration of the Democratic President Barack Obama (2009-2017), and also supported Donald Trump, who came to power in January 2017.

With his old-fashioned suits, this thin metal-framed politician has always cultivated an austere, even rustic image, matched only by his reputation as a political strategist.

Over the years, he took great pleasure in calling himself the Undertaker, used to dashing the hopes of his Democratic opponents. In the upper house of Congress, he worked hard to appoint Supreme Court justices who in 2022 struck down the constitutional guarantee of the right to abortion, much to the chagrin of American progressives.

“In our years in the Senate, Mitch McConnell and I have rarely agreed on our policies,” Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday. “But I’m proud that we’ve come together in recent years to move the Senate forward at critical moments,” he emphasized, referring, in particular, to the storming of the Capitol, the fight against the coronavirus, and the war in Ukraine.

In recent years, Mitch McConnell, a patient negotiator in the shadows, has stood out as one of the biggest defenders of US aid to Kyiv, tirelessly advocating for new funds to be sent to the country invaded by Russia.

In this fight, Mitch McConnell, who represents the traditional, rather pro-war, wing of the Republican Party, has had to deal with the arrival in Congress of Donald Trump’s lieutenants, who take increasingly isolationist positions.

This radical change has become evident in recent weeks with the blocking of a $60 billion financial package for Ukraine and the former president’s threats to NATO allies, a change that has been sharply criticized by Mitch McConnell.