Senator Jeanne Shaheen says Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had “no answers” when pressed at Tuesday’s budget hearing on $400 million in Ukraine aid that Congress appropriated in January — money that has been sitting unspent at the Pentagon for four months while Ukraine continues fighting Russia and lawmakers across both parties demand to know when it will go out the door.
“Congress appropriated $400 million to Ukraine, but the Pentagon has yet to spend it and [Secretary of War] had no answers,” Shaheen posted Monday, sharing video of her exchange with acting Pentagon comptroller Jules Hurst III at the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense hearing.
The Hearing Exchange — Shaheen vs. Hurst
In the video Shaheen posted, she pressed Hurst repeatedly and specifically on when Congress would receive a spend plan for the Ukraine funding. Hurst told her EUCOM — U.S. European Command — was still finalizing it. Shaheen noted that Gen. Brankovich at EUCOM had already reviewed the spend plan two weeks earlier. Hurst said EUCOM was trying to make “a few tweaks.”
“So when are we gonna see the spend plan for Ukraine?” Shaheen asked. “When is the money gonna go out the door? When is this committee gonna get the spend plan?” Hurst said he believed they would have it to Congress “this week” — a promise that has now been made, and missed, before.
The Full History of This $400 Million
The $400 million was appropriated as part of the $900 billion National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2026, passed by Congress in late 2025 with overwhelming bipartisan support — including from Republican majorities on both the House and Senate Armed Services Committees. The money was specifically authorized through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative and intended to fund the production of high-priority weapons by American companies for Ukraine’s armed forces, according to McConnell’s April 28 Washington Post op-ed.
For months, the money sat untouched. When Senate appropriators sought explanations from the Pentagon’s policy office — led by Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby — they were “stonewalled,” McConnell wrote. Colby had previously deemed Ukraine and Baltic security assistance “wasteful” and removed those programs from the FY2026 budget request entirely. Senate appropriators restored the funding over Colby’s objection, arguing it supported both U.S. security and domestic arms production. The money remained unspent anyway.
McConnell’s Op-Ed Finally Forced Action — Sort Of
The logjam broke only after McConnell — the Republican chair of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense — published a scathing op-ed in the Washington Post on April 28 calling the situation out publicly. “The Ukraine aid we passed months ago is now collecting dust at the Pentagon,” he wrote. The day after the op-ed was published, Hegseth appeared before Congress and for the first time confirmed the money had been “released.”
But “released” turned out to mean something less than spent. Acting comptroller Hurst told the House Appropriations Subcommittee earlier that same day — before the Senate hearing — that the funds had been “released to be put under contract” — not actually under contract. When Rep. Sarah Elfreth pressed him on when the money could actually be used on the ground in Ukraine, Hurst said: “That depends on what they buy with the money.” Hours later at the Senate hearing, Shaheen was still asking when the spend plan would arrive, and Hurst was still saying this week.
Coons Noted the Same Pattern at the Same Hearing
Shaheen was not alone in pressing this point. Sen. Chris Coons also confronted Hegseth directly about the Ukraine funds at Tuesday’s Senate subcommittee hearing, noting: “It’s May and this has been the law since January, and you or your representatives have been asked this repeatedly on a bipartisan basis by members of this committee.” Hegseth said he wanted EUCOM to be “fully informed” before the money was spent — a rationale that satisfied neither Democrats nor Republicans on the panel.
Why This Matters — Ukraine, Drones, and the China Competition
The $400 million is not just an accounting dispute. McConnell’s op-ed argued the delay has real strategic consequences — preventing American officers from traveling to Ukraine to learn counter-drone and electronic warfare lessons that are directly relevant to a potential conflict with China. “Iran, North Korea and China are watching Ukraine’s battlefield closely,” McConnell wrote, “while the Pentagon still won’t tell us why it hasn’t obligated and executed modest Ukraine investments.” At Tuesday’s hearing, McConnell told Hegseth: “We have things to learn from our friends” — specifically citing Ukraine’s success in drone warfare as a model the U.S. military should be studying.
Coons echoed that argument, noting that Ukraine has “delivered the most lethal and capable drone and counter-drone technologies in the world” — technologies directly applicable to countering the Iranian Shahed drone swarms that have been attacking U.S. and Gulf partner forces throughout the Iran war. The administration requested zero funding for Ukraine in its FY2027 budget. The committee added $400 million back on a bipartisan basis. That money is now sitting in the same bureaucratic limbo as the 2026 allocation — and Shaheen wants to know why.
Colby’s Shadow — the Man Behind the Stall
The figure at the center of the delay is Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon’s undersecretary for policy. McConnell specifically named Colby as a potential obstacle to releasing the aid in his Washington Post op-ed — noting that Colby had not only deemed Ukraine assistance “wasteful” but had been behind a previous suspension of arms shipments to Kyiv that caught even Trump “flat-footed,” according to reporting cited by The Hill. Colby’s strategic worldview — that the U.S. should focus entirely on the Pacific theater and treat European security as a distraction — has put him in direct conflict with the bipartisan congressional consensus that Ukraine aid serves American security interests.
Shaheen’s hearing exchange, and her decision to post the video publicly, is part of a sustained bipartisan effort to force the Pentagon’s hand on Ukraine funding through public pressure and congressional oversight. The money exists. The law requires it to be spent. EUCOM has reviewed the spend plan. The only thing standing between the $400 million and Ukrainian warfighters is a spend plan that has been “almost ready” for weeks — and a Pentagon that keeps asking for more time to finalize tweaks to a document that Gen. Brankovich had already signed off on. “So when is the money gonna go out the door?” Shaheen asked. As of Tuesday’s hearing, the answer was still: this week.