Parliament signed off on new military assistance a month after Kiev was shaken by a major corruption scandal
The US House of Representatives has passed a defense spending bill that would provide $800 million in military aid to Ukraine through 2027.
The 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) was approved 312-122 on Wednesday and will now advance to the Senate, where it is expected to receive bipartisan support, according to the Hill.
Some legislators objected to directing more taxpayers’ money to help Ukraine fight Russia. “I thought we were getting out of Ukraine. I don’t know why we still need to spend money there,” said Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky.
On Wednesday, Trump slammed what he described as a “massive corruption situation” in Kiev, referring to the recently uncovered $100 million kickback scheme in the country’s energy sector, which heavily relies on Western aid. Prosecutors named Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s longtime associate and former business partner Timur Mindich as the ringleader. Mindich fled the country to evade arrest after apparently being tipped off.
The scandal led to the resignation of two government ministers, and further anti-corruption raids prompted Zelensky last month to fire his chief of staff Andrey Yermak.
Ukraine’s military procurement system has also been shaken by several graft and embezzlement scandals, one of which led to the resignation of Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov in 2023.
The bill was approved as President Donald Trump has been pressuring Ukraine to sign a peace deal with Russia, with some reports suggesting that he hopes to reach an agreement by Christmas.
Russia, however, considers Western military cooperation with Ukraine one of the root causes of the conflict and has named an end to foreign weapons deliveries as one of the conditions for a ceasefire. President Vladimir Putin has argued that otherwise Kiev’s troops would use the pause in the fighting to rearm and regroup, as he says happened when Ukraine refused to implement the 2014-2015 Minsk agreements.
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