US Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is calling out the Pentagon for sitting on $400 million in aid to Ukraine authorized by Congress.
McConnell, who heads the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, directly called out Undersecretary of Defense for policy Elbridge Colby, saying he has filed to furnish Ukraine with the aid approved by congress in December.
“The Ukraine aid we passed months ago is now collecting dust at the Pentagon,” McConnell, the former longtime Senate Majority Leader, wrote in a Washington Post op-ed.
“When Senate appropriators have sought an explanation from the department’s policy shop, led by Undersecretary Elbridge Colby, they’ve been stonewalled,” the senator added.
Republican majorities approved a $900 billion National Defense Authorization Act that earmarked $400 million for Ukraine in 2026, and another $400 million next year.
The funds were specifically set to pay for the production and transport of high-priority weapons crafted by US companies for Ukraine’s armed forces, which have been beating back Russia’s invasion for more than four years.
McConnel, who hailed support for Ukraine as a boon for America’s defense industrial base, accused Colby of repeatedly getting in the way of assisting Ukraine.
“This doesn’t seem to be a first for Colby. Last year, he was reportedly behind the decision to suspend arms shipments to Kyiv — a decision that one source said caught President Donald Trump ‘flat-footed,’” McConnell wrote.
“Colby also determined that security assistance to Ukraine and America’s NATO allies in the Baltics was ‘wasteful’ and removed these long-standing efforts from the fiscal 2026 budget request,” he added.
“The Pentagon’s approach of withholding or slow-rolling support to Ukraine is in effect the same strategy President Joe Biden deployed.”
Along with slamming the Pentagon’s lack of urgency in supplying the funds to Ukraine, McConnell also criticized the Department of War for reportedly limiting the number of US advisers allowed to travel to Ukraine and learn about Kyiv’s battlefield advancements.
Ukraine has excelled in developing new, cheaper drone and anti-drone technology that has become the standout method of combat in modern warfare.
McConnel said the US could have learned more about those innovations prior to the war in Iran, where Tehran’s suicide drones — which were co-opted by Russia in Ukraine — have caused havoc.
“I know other officers who are eager to apply Ukrainians’ counter-drone and electronic warfare lessons to the U.S. Army’s preparations for future conflicts,” McConnell wrote. “They can’t learn from a war, however, if they can’t properly observe it.”
“Militaries, including our own, are now scrambling to get those proven systems to the Middle East to better defend against Iranian strikes,” the senator added.
