{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=DC75DAA9-75B0-4569-92CD-B059F10CF443", "McConnell in The Washington Post: Why is the Pentagon holding up Ukraine funds?", "2026-04-28", "2026", "2026-04", "Republican", "Senate", "KY", "Mitch McConnell", "M000355", "www.mcconnell.senate.gov", "mcconnell", "https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, submitted the following op-ed published in The Washington Post regarding Ukraine:\n\nHeadlines often say that Americans don\u2019t support U.S. aid to Ukraine, but real Americans say otherwise. They have consistently affirmed that Washington should aid Kyiv in resisting Russian aggression. Congress last year acted on that wish: Republican 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.\n\nYet the Ukraine aid we passed months ago is now collecting dust at the Pentagon. When Senate appropriators have sought an explanation from the department\u2019s policy shop, led by Undersecretary Elbridge Colby, they\u2019ve been stonewalled. Our colleagues on armed services have also expressed growing frustration with the Defense Department\u2019s inability to communicate.\n\nThis 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 Trump \u201cflat-footed.\u201d Colby also determined that security assistance to Ukraine and America\u2019s NATO allies in the Baltics was \u201cwasteful\u201d and removed these long-standing efforts from the fiscal 2026 budget request. Republican majorities disagreed and restored the funds. We did so not out of charity but because aiding Ukraine is an investment in America\u2019s security.\n\nIn 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. Even amid the Biden administration\u2019s anemic response, Senate appropriators used supplemental funding bills to expand production capacity for critical munitions and components like solid rocket motors. Congress also exceeded the Trump administration\u2019s request in the fiscal 2026 defense appropriations bill to build on that progress and address long-standing munitions shortfalls. Pentagon officials who embraced a continuing resolution last year \u2014 and a fiscal 2026 budget request that wouldn\u2019t have come close to maximizing U.S. production capacity \u2014 therefore needn\u2019t lecture us about limited supplies.\n\nPresident Donald Trump\u2019s focus on ending the war is noble. But the price and stability of peace matter. The Pentagon\u2019s approach of withholding or slow-rolling support to Ukraine is in effect the same strategy President Joe Biden deployed. Never mind that hesitating to give Ukraine what it needs weakens its capacity to defend against aggression and hampers the prospects of diplomacy.\n\nPentagon officials seem to have retained other self-defeating policies too. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George visited Ukraine last year to see firsthand the rapid evolution of battlefield tactics and technologies. Driscoll described it as the \u201cSilicon Valley of warfare\u201d and recently said the country has \u201cdone an amazing job innovating.\u201d But he and Gen. George are among the few senior officials to have made the journey.\n\nI know other 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. The 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.\n\nWhether by policy or by choice, top Pentagon officials responsible for Ukraine policy, including the head of the U.S. European Command, haven\u2019t made the trip. The president\u2019s special envoy in charge of negotiations evidently hasn\u2019t either, even though he\u2019s been to Moscow multiple times.\n\nAmerica\u2019s adversaries aren\u2019t so willfully ignorant about the modern battlefield. They 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. North Korea has likewise gotten involved, sending troops to Russia not out of charity but for tactical experience and closer alignment with Moscow. China is doubtless watching events in Ukraine and the Middle East closely as it refines its military investments and plans.\n\nWe\u2019re already paying a price for inaction. The Biden and Trump administrations have both failed to take advantage of Ukraine\u2019s advances in drone and counter-drone technology. Militaries, including our own, are now scrambling to get those proven systems to the Mideast to better defend against Iranian strikes.\n\nMeantime, the Pentagon still won\u2019t tell us why it hasn\u2019t obligated and executed modest Ukraine investments. If we\u2019re serious about \u201cdrone dominance,\u201d we shouldn\u2019t sandbag a relationship with the world\u2019s foremost drone experts. And if we\u2019re keen on remaining the world\u2019s preeminent superpower, we shouldn\u2019t let unelected defense officials undermine U.S. leadership and obstruct deepening ties with Ukraine\u2019s innovative military and industrial base. What gives?", 1, "2026-04-29T06:03:53Z", "2026-04-29T06:05:09Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=DC75DAA9-75B0-4569-92CD-B059F10CF443"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.748195918276906, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}