April 29, 2026 - WASHINGTON, D.C. – 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:  

Headlines often say that Americans don’t 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.

Yet the Ukraine aid we passed months ago is now collecting dust at the Pentagon. When Senate appropriators have sought an explanation from the department’s policy shop, led by Undersecretary Elbridge Colby, they’ve been stonewalled. Our colleagues on armed services have also expressed growing frustration with the Defense Department’s inability to communicate.

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 Trump “flat-footed.” 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. Republican majorities disagreed and restored the funds. We did so not out of charity but because aiding Ukraine is an investment in America’s security.

In 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’s 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’s 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 — and a fiscal 2026 budget request that wouldn’t have come close to maximizing U.S. production capacity — therefore needn’t lecture us about limited supplies.

President Donald Trump’s focus on ending the war is noble. But the price and stability of peace matter. The Pentagon’s 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.

Pentagon 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 “Silicon Valley of warfare” and recently said the country has “done an amazing job innovating.” But he and Gen. George are among the few senior officials to have made the journey.

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. They can’t learn from a war, however, if they can’t 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.

Whether by policy or by choice, top Pentagon officials responsible for Ukraine policy, including the head of the U.S. European Command, haven’t made the trip. The president’s special envoy in charge of negotiations evidently hasn’t either, even though he’s been to Moscow multiple times.

America’s adversaries aren’t 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.

We’re already paying a price for inaction. The Biden and Trump administrations have both failed to take advantage of Ukraine’s 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.

Meantime, the Pentagon still won’t tell us why it hasn’t obligated and executed modest Ukraine investments. If we’re serious about “drone dominance,” we shouldn’t sandbag a relationship with the world’s foremost drone experts. And if we’re keen on remaining the world’s preeminent superpower, we shouldn’t let unelected defense officials undermine U.S. leadership and obstruct deepening ties with Ukraine’s innovative military and industrial base. What gives?

Source: Senator Mitch McConnell