Senate set to pass $40B Ukraine aid bill

The Senate is on track to pass a $40 billion emergency aid package to buttress Ukraine with weapons and other military help as the Eastern European country fends off the Russian invasion.

The chamber is expected to clear the legislation for President Joe Biden’s signature on Thursday, with no time to spare before the Pentagon said it would exhaust its power to send weapons to Ukraine from U.S. stockpiles. Top lawmakers in both parties insist the multibillion-dollar injection is just what Ukraine needs to bolster its defenses as Russia approaches its fourth month of conflict.

The deal marks the most substantial U.S. commitment yet to helping Ukraine as the war grinds on and Russia’s invasion focuses on the eastern Donbas region. It dwarfs the nearly $14 billion in emergency funding Congress approved in March and is even larger than the $33 billion emergency request Biden sent lawmakers last month.

“Aid for Ukraine goes far beyond charity,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said on the floor Thursday. “The future of America’s security and core strategic interests will be shaped by the outcome of this fight.”

The Republican leader predicted the passage vote would be “a big bipartisan landslide,” despite some opposition expected from Republicans embracing the non-interventionism promoted by former President Donald Trump.

The Senate is expected to pass the bill with overwhelming support, just as the House approved the measure 368-57 last week.

“Anyone concerned about the cost of supporting a Ukrainian victory should consider the much larger cost should Ukraine lose,” McConnell warned before the vote, calling on “every senator on both sides to join this bipartisan supermajority.”

Returning from a trip to Kyiv over the weekend, top Senate Republicans have spent the last few days reiterating the pleas of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in urging swift passage of the aid package that has been held up in the Senate for more than a week.

“What they’ve asked of us is to give them the tools that they need to fight their own fight,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said. “President Zelenskyy emphasized a message he’s consistently shared with us: We need more, and we need it faster — more Stingers, more Javelins, more air defenses, more lethal aid.”

The brunt of the new funding under the $40 billion aid package will go toward weapons and equipment for Ukraine. The measure gives the Pentagon a new $11 billion in authority to take those resources from U.S. stockpiles and ship them to the frontlines, plus almost $9 billion to backfill items already sent.

Top military officials say it’s significant that Russia gained control this week of Mariupol, a major economic port that could help Russia encircle the Donbas. But the battle is not over.

“Mariupol aside, the fighting still goes on in the Donbas,” said John Kirby, the Pentagon’s top spokesperson. “And the Ukrainians are still putting up a very stiff resistance in towns and villages throughout the Donbas.”

The fact that the bill languished in Congress amid the fall of the crucial Ukrainian port city has irked lawmakers in both parties. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called it “repugnant” that Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has objected to swift passage of the measure for more than a week.

To delay the bill “for purely political motives,” Schumer said, “is to only strengthen Putin’s hand.”

Paul argues that the package raises questions of “unconstitutionality” as well as “affordability.” For days the Kentucky Republican demanded that the Senate amend the bill to designate a special federal watchdog to oversee how the $40 billion is spent.

“Isn’t there a more fiscally responsible way this could be done? What about taking the $40 billion from elsewhere in the budget?” Paul said this week.

Adopting Paul’s amendment would have sent the bill back to the House for another vote. And while Senate leaders brushed aside his proposal for a special watchdog, the bill as written would already force the Pentagon’s inspector general to review how the Defense Department spends the emergency funding and deliver a report to Congress. It also requires the Defense and State departments to keep tabs on the end use of weapons and equipment sent to Ukraine.

Aside from the power to transfer billions of dollars worth of weapons from U.S. troves, the package would provide another $6 billion to the Pentagon account for arming Ukraine’s military, as well as nearly $4 billion for military operations in Europe. The State Department would receive $4 billion for foreign military financing to help arm Ukraine and other NATO countries.

The Senate’s move to pass the aid package follows the chamber’s unanimous confirmation Wednesday evening of Bridget Brink to serve as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, filling the post after three years of vacancy without a Senate-backed envoy.

Despite a massive price tag, some lawmakers aren’t sold that the latest round of assistance is enough to adequately back Ukraine against Russia. Though lawmakers could eventually approve more aid, it’s unclear when that bill would come due and what more the Ukrainians will need.

“The next several months will be critical,” said Senate Armed Services Chair Jack Reed (D-R.I.). “I think the realization is … that if the Russians succeed here, that won’t satisfy them, that that will empower them to do more.”

Even if Ukraine and Russia negotiate an end to the battle, U.S. military leaders say it’s important for the United States to pump substantial resources to the allied country now.

“We all want to see the fighting end,” Kirby said this week. “What we’re doing in the meantime is trying to provide as many advantages to the Ukrainian armed forces as we can so that they are in a better position on the battlefield — and should there be a negotiated end to it, that they’re in a better negotiating position as well.”

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