The leader of the Senate Armed Services Committee has urged the upper chamber to consider swift passage of the new $40 billion Ukraine emergency aid supplemental, a day after the House passed the funding bill with a 368 to 57 vote.
“This assistance package will help Ukrainians as they bravely defend themselves, fight to maintain their independence, and resist further advancement by Putin’s troops and mercenaries,” Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), the chair of SASC, said in a statement Wednesday afternoon. “Now is the time for the Senate to act. Congress should send a strong message to Putin that Americans continue to stand in solidarity with the people of Ukraine and that we are committed to supporting them as they fight bravely to defend their homeland.
The new $40 billion supplemental, $7 billion more than the White House requested, includes nearly $20 billion for Pentagon-specific efforts.
The bill specifically includes $6 billion for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative to procure military equipment to send to Kyiv to aid in its ongoing fight against Russia’s invasion, another $8.7 billion to help replenish stockpiles U.S. weapons sent via drawdown authority and $3.9 billion to support European Command operations.
The supplemental funding also covers $600 million for Defense Production Act efforts to “mitigate industrial base constraints for faster missile production and expanded domestic capacity of strategic and critical minerals,” according to a summary of the bill, and another $500 million “to procure critical munitions to increase the stocks of the Department of Defense.”
The White House original $33 billion supplemental funding request had called for $5 billion for drawdown authority and another $6 billion for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (Defense Daily, April 28).
This would be the second supplemental funding to support Ukraine following a $13.6 billion spending bill passed in mid-March along with the $1.5 trillion fiscal year 2022 omnibus that covered $3 billion for “European Command operations mission support, the deployment of personnel to the region, and intelligence support” and $3.5 billion to replenish defense stocks for equipment provided to Ukraine (Defense Daily, March 11).
The U.S. has committed more than $4.5 billion in security assistance to Ukraine over the last year, to include more than $3.8 billion since the beginning of the Russian invasion in February.
Last week, the Pentagon announced the ninth package delivered via drawdown authority, which was a $150 million weapons package covering 25,000 155mm artillery rounds, three AN/TPQ-36 counter-artillery radars and electronic jamming equipment.