Representative McCarthy will hold USD 300 million for Ukraine in US defense budget

The Hill reported the information.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy said that he would keep aid to Ukraine in the Pentagon funding bill, despite his statement a day earlier that he would withdraw the money due to opposition from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green.

McCarthy decided to keep USD 300 million in aid to Ukraine in the bill after realizing that another budget document to be passed next week - one that funds the State Department and foreign operations - also includes money for Kyiv.

The speaker said that it was "getting harder and harder" to remove aid to Ukraine from the State Department and foreign operations budgets, so he decided to keep money for Kyiv in both budgets.

Next week, the House of Representatives is to hold a single procedural vote to pass four appropriations bills, including those funding the Pentagon, State Department, and foreign operations.

"That’s not solving it because one of the others has some Ukraine things," McCarthy said of removing Ukraine aid from the Pentagon appropriations bill. "So it became too difficult to do that so we’re leaving it in."

The outlet noted that USD 300 million relates to funding for the Security Assistance to Ukraine program, which has been operating since 2014, when Russia invaded Ukraine.

• During the talks, US President Joe Biden assured Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Ukraine would receive a limited number of ATACMS missiles.