A bipartisan pair of senators introduced legislation Thursday calling for tens of billions of dollars in aid for Ukraine to be spent over the next two years, as Russian President Vladimir Putin rebuffs calls from President Trump to halt the war.
The bill was introduced by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a member of the Appropriations Committee, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), a member of the Appropriations Committee. The top-line figure for the bill comes in at more than $50 billion, according to Shaheen’s office.
The Shaheen-Murkowski bill comes as the Senate Appropriations Committee advanced on Thursday a defense funding bill with $1 billion in military assistance related to Ukraine.
Still, the bill’s passage faces long odds in the Republican-controlled Congress, where GOP leaders in the House and Senate have deferred to Trump over which legislation makes it to the floor. The administration has slashed foreign aid so far, and administration officials and some GOP lawmakers regularly rally against sending U.S. military and other assistance abroad.
While Congress approved $60 billion in Ukraine funding in April 2024, 18 senators voted against it, including Vice President Vance, then a Republican senator from Ohio.
And Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) has held back putting on the floor a bipartisan Russia sanctions bill — with a veto-proof majority of co-sponsors — at the request of Trump, who wants to decide when to impose sanctions on Russia if Moscow fails to negotiate an end to the war. Trump has set an Aug. 8 deadline.
But Shaheen and Murkowski are framing their legislation as giving Trump additional tools to force Putin to the negotiating table — by scaling up Ukraine’s military capabilities to withstand Russian attacks. The legislation also sets up guardrails to protect against executive action limiting assistance to Ukraine.
The language responds to Trump’s decision in March to pause intelligence sharing to Ukraine for one week after a public spat with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office, and a decision by the Pentagon earlier this month to pause certain weapons transfers to Ukraine pending a review.
Shaheen and Murkowski’s legislation provides billions of dollars in direct military assistance to Ukraine, but much of the funding is intended for investing in military production in the U.S., and it also seeks novel ways of raising funds to pay for support for Kyiv.
These include using interest earned from frozen Russian assets in the U.S. to fund assistance for Kyiv; sending to Ukraine “seized,” “illicit” weapons from nonstate actors or using the sale of those weapons to fund military equipment for Ukraine; and prioritizing American military production for purchases by U.S. allies to then be sent to Ukraine.
The bill also codifies Trump’s so-called minerals deal with Ukraine, formally named the Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund, which was established in May. U.S. military assistance to Ukraine is expected to be counted as a U.S. contribution into the fund.
Direct funding for military assistance for Ukraine includes $30 billion lasting until 2027 and provides $3 billion in foreign military financing for Ukraine over the next two fiscal years. The bill increases the presidential drawdown authority from $100 million to $6 billion each year, allowing the U.S. to pull directly from Pentagon weapons stockpiles to send to Ukraine, with the money to pay for backfilling those stocks.
The bill also provides $600 million for the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement to support Ukrainian law enforcement and anti-corruption programming. It provides $50 million for war crimes prosecutions.
Shaheen and Murkowski also include $1 billion for a trilateral drone initiative — for research, development and production of drones with Ukraine and Taiwan — to learn lessons from Ukraine’s fight against Russia.
The bill also creates a task force “to process lessons learned from Ukraine’s fight, including modern warfighting doctrine” and how to counter U.S. vulnerabilities to drone attacks.
“This bipartisan bill is a win for America,” Shaheen said in a statement. “It supports our defense industrial base, American manufacturers and workers — all while ensuring the U.S. military learns from Ukraine’s battlefield innovations. Make no mistake: unprovoked violence against U.S. partners by would-be aggressors in the Kremlin and Beijing will be met by unshakable resolve from the U.S. and our allies.”
“I’m pleased to work with Senator Shaheen in introducing the Supporting Ukraine Act of 2025, which reaffirms our commitment to both Ukraine’s sovereignty and America’s national interests,” Murkowski said in a statement.
“By providing critical funding for military and humanitarian assistance, this legislation ensures Ukraine can continue to resist Russia’s illegal and brutal war.”
She added, “We are also incorporating the use of seized Russian assets to hold aggressors accountable, while strengthening America’s military preparedness by applying valuable battlefield insights from Ukraine’s fight and sharing these lessons with critical partners like Taiwan. It’s time to reaffirm our leadership on the world stage and show that our support for our allies is unwavering.”
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