Congress has appropriated more than $100 billion in military and economic support for Ukraine in the year since Russia's military invaded, while President Joe Biden has declared his support for continuing such aid.
Lawmakers in Washington agreed to provide Ukraine with roughly $112 billion in four separate spending bills last year. A small but growing number of members wants to end such aid.
The aid includes roughly $67 billion of military aid, $28 billion of economic aid, nearly $15 billion in humanitarian aid, and roughly $3 billion includes money meant for oversight, support for Ukraine’s nuclear power sector, moving U.S. Embassy personnel, and spending on investigation of oligarchs and war crimes, according to NPR.
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Biden made a surprise visit to Kyiv on Monday, where he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Biden, who has continuously repeated his commitment to helping Ukraine throughout the war, announced the administration's latest military aid package, valued at roughly $460 million, during his trip there. He also reiterated his support.
“One year later, Kyiv stands, and Ukraine stands. Democracy stands. The Americans stand with you, and the world stands with you," Biden said, adding that Russian President Vladimir Putin "thought he could outlast us. I don’t think he’s thinking that right now. God knows what he’s thinking, but I don’t think he’s thinking that. But he’s just been plain wrong. Plain wrong."
"I thought it was critical that there not be any doubt, none whatsoever, about U.S. support for Ukraine in the war," he added.
The U.S. and Western allies calibrate the aid packages to Ukraine to meet direct and immediate needs. At times these governments refuse to provide certain weapons they believe could be viewed as provocative or escalatory by the Russian government. Biden, however, has become less averse to these concerns throughout the year. On multiple occasions, the president initially said no to a Ukrainian request only to change his mind weeks or months later as conditions evolved. He's done that most recently with the Patriot missile defense system and on Abrams tanks.
There have been bipartisan calls for him to provide Ukraine with F-16 fighter jets that Biden and other European allies have declined to thus far, while there's a much smaller faction of the Republican Party that wants to cut off all aid.
Reps. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), Jason Crow (D-CO), Jared Golden (D-ME), Tony Gonzales (R-TX), and Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA) wrote a letter to Biden last week expressing their support for providing F-16s to Ukraine, writing in part that the aircraft “could prove decisive for control of Ukrainian airspace this year."
“F-16s or similar fourth generation fighter aircraft would provide Ukraine with a highly mobile platform from which to target Russian air-to-air missiles and drones, to protect Ukrainian ground forces as they engage Russian troops, as well as to engage Russian fighters for contested air superiority,” they added. “In contrast to the current, ground-based air defense platforms currently used by Ukrainian forces, fighter aircraft’s ability to quickly traverse a large battle space with a significant weapons payload could prove decisive for control of Ukrainian airspace this year.”
Additionally, Ukraine has repeatedly asked for surface-to-surface long-range missile systems, but Colin Kahl, the undersecretary of defense for policy, told reporters last month that the Pentagon’s judgment “to date has been that the juice isn’t really worth the squeeze.”
Zelensky said he and Biden spoke on Monday about “long-range weapons and the weapons that may still be supplied to Ukraine even though it wasn’t supplied before."
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul has repeatedly derided the president's refusal to provide Ukraine with the long-range missile systems, saying last month after an aid package excluded them, "Every time the administration has delayed sending Ukraine a critical weapon system, from Stingers to HIMARS to Bradleys, over fears of Russian escalation, they have been proven completely and utterly wrong. Instead, these cowardly decisions based on misguided fears of escalation are prolonging this war, emboldening Russia, and condemning thousands of Ukrainians to horrific war crimes, other atrocities and even death.”
McCaul, in a recent interview on CNN with House Intelligence Chairman Mike Turner, argued that refusing to provide these weapons to Ukraine benefits Putin by providing him with more time for the West's support of Ukraine to fracture.
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“The longer they drag this out, they play into Putin’s hands," he explained. "He wants this to be a long protracted war because he knows that, potentially, we could lose the will of the American people and therefore the Congress. And we’re seeing the same dynamic in the European Parliaments. Strong support now, but they’re worried that if this doesn’t end with a resolution sooner rather than later, this will be an issue for us.”
Comparatively, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) introduced a resolution in the House earlier this month with 10 co-sponsors that calls for the U.S. to end aid to Ukraine.
Turner estimated in that interview that "probably 400" of the 435 voting members of Congress continue to support aiding Ukraine.