The White House is withholding $400 million in military aid for Kiev approved by Congress, US Senator Dick Durbin has said. The funding, allocated by lawmakers in January, will not be available until at least 2029, Durbin said during a hearing on Wednesday.
The money is part of the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), a Pentagon-led program in which Ukraine receives training, equipment, and advisory assistance from the US.
According to Durbin, the package has yet to reach Kiev and has so far “bounced back and forth.” On Wednesday, he said the administration of President Donald Trump “informed us that the money will not be available in many aspects until the next president is in office.”
“The payment plan tells us to be prepared to spend that money in fiscal year 2029,” he said while questioning Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine.
Caine replied that he was unaware of the delay and told the senator to raise the matter with the “civilian leaders.”
The White House has not made an official statement regarding the fate of the package. Last month, Durbin asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio about the issue, who said the funding was going through “interagency processes” and that he expected news of its release “shortly.”
In March, the Washington Post reported that the US government could have diverted the money allocated for Ukraine to replenish military stockpiles depleted during the war with Iran.
Senator Mitch McConnell wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post a month later, complaining that the $400 million in Ukraine aid approved by Congress was “now collecting dust at the Pentagon.”
On Wednesday, Durbin said he met with Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Ankara earlier this month. According to the senator, Zelensky was “very explicit in terms of what he needed” in the conflict with Russia.
Trump has criticized his predecessor, Joe Biden, for his unconditional support for Ukraine and said any future US military aid should be paid for by Kiev’s European backers.
Zelensky has repeatedly blamed the West for weapons shortages and delays in deliveries for Ukraine’s setbacks on the battlefield. Moscow has maintained that foreign military aid only serves to escalate the conflict and will not prevent Russia from achieving its military objectives.