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Former Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), who now chairs the powerful Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, is taking the Pentagon to task for sitting on $400 million in military aid to Ukraine authorized by Congress.<\/p>\n
And he is putting the spotlight on Elbridge Colby, the undersecretary of defense for policy, as the most likely obstacle to sending the aid that Republican lawmakers supported last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cRepublican majorities on both armed services committees authorized $400 million for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative for each of the next two years. Appropriators fully funded that authorization for fiscal 2026 with overwhelming support,\u201d McConnell wrote in an op-ed published in The Washington Post.<\/p>\n
\u201cYet the Ukraine aid we passed months ago is now collecting dust at the Pentagon,\u201d he added. \u201cWhen Senate appropriators have sought an explanation from the department\u2019s policy shop, led by Undersecretary Elbridge Colby, they\u2019ve been stonewalled.\u201d<\/p>\n
The $900 billion National Defense Authorization Act approved by Congress for fiscal 2026 provided $400 million for Ukraine in 2026 and another $400 million in 2027 through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative.<\/p>\n
The funding was intended to pay for the production of high-priority weapons by American companies for Ukraine\u2019s Armed Forces.<\/p>\n
McConnell noted in his op-ed that Colby, according to media reports, made the decision to suspend arms shipments to Ukraine last year. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis doesn\u2019t seem to be a first for Colby. Last year, he was reportedly behind the decision to suspend arms shipments to Kyiv \u2014 a decision that one source said caught President Donald Trump \u2018flat-footed,\u2019\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n
\u201cColby also determined that security assistance to Ukraine and America\u2019s NATO allies in the Baltics was \u2018wasteful\u2019 and removed these long-standing efforts from the fiscal 2026 budget request,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n
McConnell said that Republican majorities in Congress restored the funding because they viewed it as an important investment in national security.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the first two years of the full-scale war, support for Ukraine drove billions of dollars in investments in the U.S. defense industrial base,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n
Even though McConnell viewed President Biden\u2019s response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine as \u201canemic,\u201d he argued that members of the Senate Appropriations Committee were able to pass supplemental funding under Biden to expand production capacity for critical munitions and components.<\/p>\n
McConnell also criticized the Defense Department\u2019s leadership for limiting the number of U.S. advisors who are allowed to travel to Ukraine, asserting that policy limits the Pentagon\u2019s ability to learn about battlefield innovations.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know \u2026 officers who are eager to apply Ukrainians\u2019 counter-drone and electronic warfare lessons to the U.S. Army\u2019s preparations for future conflicts. They can\u2019t learn from a war, however, if they can\u2019t properly observe it,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Pentagon nevertheless continues a Biden administration policy of significantly capping the number of military trainers authorized to assist Ukraine and witness the conflict up close,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, McConnell said, America\u2019s adversaries, such as Iran, have been eager to learn new tactics from Ukraine\u2019s battlefields.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are learning and adapting. Iran has made that painfully clear in its attacks on U.S. personnel and facilities in the Persian Gulf, which applied drone capabilities honed by Russia with deadly effect,\u201d he wrote. \u201cNorth Korea has likewise gotten involved, sending troops to Russia not out of charity but\u00a0for tactical experience and closer alignment with Moscow.\u201d<\/p>\n
And McConnell warned that China is \u201cdoubtless watching events in Ukraine\u201d as it crafts its military investments and plans.<\/p>\n
Yet, he lamented \u201cthe Pentagon still won\u2019t tell us why it hasn\u2019t obligated and executed modest Ukraine investments.\u201d<\/p>\n
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