By Patricia Zengerle
WASHINGTON, July 27 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has told members of Congress it will not finish spending $400 million Congress has authorized for aid to Ukraine until fiscal year 2029, even as Kyiv runs critically low on weapons it needs to fend off Russian missile attacks.
In May, the Department of Defense sent a letter to lawmakers outlining its spending plan, a source familiar with the document said on Monday. Democrats and some of Trump's fellow
Republicans had criticized the Pentagon for sitting on aid for Kyiv, which members of both parties had backed last year.
Two months after the letter was sent, the funds still have not been disbursed or even obligated by being put on contract, the source said.
Congress has repeatedly complained about the slow pace of spending. The letter has not been previously reported.
Zelenskiy is expected to meet with Trump at the White House on Tuesday, where he will keep pressing for urgently needed air defense capabilities and completing a drone deal with the U.S., a source familiar with the plans said.
After that meeting, he is expected to come to the U.S. Capitol for a meeting with all 100 senators. The House of Representatives is out of Washington for its summer recess.
Two sources said members of Congress were unhappy about the Pentagon's timeline, which they consider unusually slow for an ongoing conflict.
The delivery timeline in the letter said the funds would be obligated during fiscal 2026, which ends on September 30, and final delivery of all assistance is estimated in the year ending September 30, 2029.
Trump's second term ends on January 20, 2029.
The U.S. president has lately taken a positive tone toward Ukraine, signing off on a proposal to give a license for Ukraine to manufacture Patriot interceptor missiles and signaling that he would sign a Russia sanctions bill put forward by the late Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a close Trump ally in the Senate.
Zelenskiy will attend Graham's funeral on Tuesday.
Graham's sudden death this month raised the question of whether Trump's recent tilt in favor of Kyiv would last without Graham's advocacy, especially legislation to sanction Russia and military assistance for Ukraine.
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
LAWMAKERS FRUSTRATED OVER STALLED FUNDS
Members of Congress have pressed the administration over the slow pace of spending for Ukraine.
In April, Republican Senator Mitch McConnell published an editorial criticizing the delay in military aid. And the issue has come up often at congressional hearings.
At a hearing last week with Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Dan Caine and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, a senior member of the Appropriations Committee, asked about the spending plan.
Durbin questioned what impact assistance could have on Ukraine's battle against Russian invaders if it take so long.
"If you’re talking about air defenses and the momentum alongside Zelenskyy, what impact will it have if we can’t fund this for three years?" Durbin asked.
Several times last year, the Pentagon held up shipments of weapons to Ukraine out of concern that U.S. weapons supplies were too low. Trump's fellow Republicans, who control Congress, have not outwardly pushed him on the issue.
The spending plan outlined in the letter covers $400 million for capacity building, funding equipment, training and services for Ukrainian forces to defend themselves against the Russian incursion.
Items in the plan include $200 million for weapons, ammunition and explosives, $99.9 million for vehicles, spares and equipment and $100 million for services such as transportation of defense articles to Ukraine.
Under U.S. law, the president is legally required to spend funds appropriated by Congress and cannot unilaterally block them to pursue separate policy goals. Trump's first impeachment in 2019 came after the Government Accountability Office ruled that his administration broke the law by withholding defense funds for Ukraine.
Ukraine has been by far the top recipient of U.S. foreign aid since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, but the U.S. commitment to Kyiv has been called into question since Trump took office, and his Republicans took control of both houses of Congress, in January 2025.
No major aid bill has passed Congress since then and Democrats in particular have accused Trump and the Republicans of slow-walking aid that was approved before he took office.
According to the Council on Foreign Relations, by the end of September 2024 the U.S. had allocated $175 billion related to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, $106 billion of which went into direct aid to Ukraine, while $69 billion remained in the US economy to support US industries.
(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Additional reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Don Durfee and David Gregorio)
