Included in the $1.5 trillion funding bill passed by the Senate on Thursday night (March 10), is $13.6 billion in monies for Ukraine, nearly half of which is allocated for the U.S. Defense Department, to fund the expanded operations of the U.S. European Command and $3.5 billion to backfill equipment that the U.S. has sent to Ukraine, The Hill reports. The State Department gets nearly $4 billion, and the Agency for International Development nearly $2.8 billion, only some of which is to fund humanitarian operations.
Meanwhile, more than 40 Republican senators, led by Utah’s notorious Mitt Romney and Iowa’s Joni Ernst, demand President Biden speed up the transfer of air power and air defense systems, in particular, to Ukraine. In a letter sent on March 10, the Senators informed the President that “we strongly disagree with your decision to delay and deny Poland the option to transfer fighter jets to Ukraine…. Your Administration … has definitively stated there are no restrictions in your current suite of authorities to adequately respond to Russia’s lawless and bloody invasion of Ukraine. We implore you to direct your Department of Defense to facilitate the transfer of aircraft, air defense systems, and other capabilities by and through our NATO partners immediately.”
Their complaint stems from the Pentagon nixing the Polish proposals for the U.S. to deliver its MiG fighter jets to Ukraine, because that would risk direct war with Russia. Similar concerns are behind the Pentagon’s refusal to provide Ukraine with Patriot missile defense systems, according to Defense One. “There’s no discussion about putting a Patriot battery in Ukraine. In order to do that you have to put U.S. troops with it to operate it,” a senior defense official told that publication on March 10. “It is not a system that the Ukrainians are familiar with and as we have made very clear, there will be no U.S. troops fighting in Ukraine.” (Operating a Patriot missile battery usually takes about 90 U.S. soldiers, they report.)
