New York Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said that “at least” $12 billion in aid would be needed to “win the war.”
“Ukraine has made significant advances against Russia in the war, the vicious war that Putin has waged against the Ukrainian people,” Schumer said, speaking to reporters at a press conference on Sunday, according to the New York Daily News. “I will be pushing for at least $12 billion in aid for Ukraine in the budget so they can continue to win the war effort.”
Speaking ahead of the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York on Monday, Schumer said that the additional aid would serve as a symbol of the United States’ unrelenting support for Ukraine.
“And that’s another reason to make sure the Russians know more aid is coming and they’re not going to win this war because the United States will [not] back off or turn its back on the people of Ukraine.”
“There’s been strong Ukrainian counteroffensives,” Schumer continued, “but it’s only because of the weapons that we have gotten them. This is a critical time for momentum in Ukraine and Congress, and the United States cannot let them down at this point in time.”
Schumer explained that he would like to include the aid package to Ukraine in a stop-gap spending bill. Schumer’s proposal, if seen to fruition, would inextricably tie the aid package with the continued funding of the government. Congress must pass the annual federal budget for the stop-gap bill by the end of the month.
The request for more aid comes in light of a recent report from Law Enforcement Today, detailing that last month, “the State Department announced that the World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers report, which has been published for over 50 years, will no longer be produced.”
The censoring of military expenditures comes as The Intercept reports that since its entry into the war, the U.S. has “pumped more money and weapons into supporting the Ukrainian military than it sent in 2020 to Afghanistan, Israel, and Egypt combined.”
But the Intercept notes that the actual spending of such assistance has been hard to track “because the assistance is drawn from a variety of sources. And because it’s not always easy to distinguish between aid that’s been authorized, pledged, or delivered — some analysts estimate the true figure of the U.S. commitment to Ukraine is much higher: up to $40 billion in security assistance, or $110 million a day over the last year.”
Breitbart reports that 11 Senate Republicans along with 57 House Republicans voted against the Ukraine aid package over concerns it would lead to more entanglement in a foreign conflict while noting that Congress should not spend money at a time when Americans are dealing with inflation. The Republicans also warned that there might not be enough measures in place to ensure the aid is properly appropriated.
