Republicans are starting to acknowledge that Ukraine will need another major military aid package from Congress, despite Vice President JD Vance’s pledge last year that Congress would not approve another assistance package on the scale of what lawmakers passed in 2024.
President Trump will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, Friday in hopes of moving closer to a peace deal, but there is broad skepticism among Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill that Putin is serious about a deal or could be counted on to uphold his end of any bargain.
Trump has expressed his frustration with Putin and over what he calls “meaningless” peace gestures, but nevertheless says he wants to meet with the Russian leader to see if a peace deal is possible.
Some Republicans in Congress, however, are expecting the war to drag on for months longer and want to appropriate tens of billions of dollars to keep Ukrainian forces stocked with weapons to halt the Russian advance, which has gained momentum in recent weeks.
One Republican senator who requested anonymity to discuss internal discussions about another Ukraine military assistance package said there’s been a clear shift in tone from Trump on the subject of the war and Russian aggression in recent weeks.
“Look at the changing conversation, look at the change in tone of the words that Trump has been using — going from being pretty standoffish about any further support for Ukraine and talking nicer about Putin to now challenging Putin,” the lawmakers.
The senator said there’s a growing “recognition” by the president “that it’s going to be important for Ukraine to be successful and Putin not be successful.”
Trump said last month he was “not happy with Putin” after he approved sending new weapons to Ukraine and said he was open to additional sanctions on Russia.
“We get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin … He’s very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless,” he said.
Jim McLaughlin, a Republican pollster who works with Trump, said the president knows that most Americans don’t want to see Russia victorious in Ukraine and view Putin as an adversary.
“Clearly, the American people are on the side of Ukraine, as well they should be,” he said.
Trump on Wednesday threatened “severe consequences’ if Russia does not agree to a peace deal with Ukraine and has set a deadline for Russia to get serious about ending the war if it is to avoid heavy sanctions against countries that buy Russian oil.
A Pew Research Center poll of 3,554 U.S. adults published on Thursday found that 59 percent of Americans are not confident of Trump’s handling of the Russia-Ukraine war and 33 percent said Trump is likely to favor Russia too much.
Overall, 29 percent of Americans say that the U.S. is not providing enough assistance to Ukraine while 18 percent said it’s providing too much. One in four respondents said the U.S. is giving the right amount of aid to Ukraine.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) are proposing a $54.6 billion package in new aide to Ukraine, something that will get more attention as congressional leaders ramp up negotiations on a fiscal 2026 spending deal.
The amount proposed by Murkowski is substantially more than the $1 billion in military assistance for Ukraine included in the 2026 Defense appropriations bill, which passed out of the Appropriations Committee by a 26-3 vote last month.
“It will be important to stimulate the conversation on Ukraine, which I think is good,” said Murkowski of her proposal.
Democrats are reaching out to Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the chairman of the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, in an effort to build bipartisan support for another Ukraine aid package, according to a person familiar with the behind-the-scenes negotiations.
The leading defense hawks didn’t reject the overtures, the source said.
Wicker and McConnell were leading proponents of the $61 billion Ukraine aid package, which Congress passed in April 2024.
Wicker argued last year that supporting Ukraine would make “us stronger and Russia weaker” and pointed out that European allies have stepped up their support for the war, significantly.
McConnell asserted in an Aug. 1 Washington Post op-ed that pulling back from the war in Ukraine would harm U.S. readiness for future conflicts.
“Prevailing in any future fight will also draw on the lessons we continue to learn from Ukraine, a place the Army secretary rightly calls ‘the Silicon Valley of warfare.’ Abandoning partners at the cutting edge of modern warfare would be strategic self-harm,” he argued.
Shaheen told The Hill that her goal is to keep the issue of military aid to Ukraine on top of colleagues’ minds.
“The goal is to keep in front of people the importance of continued aid to Ukraine and to recognize that the best way to get Russia to the table is to continue to provide the assistance that Ukraine needs in order to conduct this war,” she said.
“I’ve talked to several people who are supportive of it,” she said, adding that the discussions would be put on pause until senators return to Washington after Labor Day.
A conservative Republican strategist said that there’s a growing belief among Republicans in Congress that Trump is open to another aid package for Ukraine.
“Trump is not completely turned off of the idea of more money for Ukraine. I think everything is part of the negotiation,” the strategist said. “People like Murkowski and Roger Wicker, they all want to give more money to Ukraine, but they’re probably going to take direction from the White House.
“The White House is probably open to it. I think you’re still going to get opposition from the Rand Pauls of the world,” the strategist said, referring to Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who opposes additional funding for the war and a cutback in defense spending more generally.
The strategist, however, said there would be strong support in the Senate Republican conference for a Ukraine aid package if Trump gives it the green light, pointing out there’s much greater confidence among Republican senators that the Trump administration would keep closer track of how the money is being spent compared to oversight during the Biden administration.
The source said that many Republican lawmakers were concerned about sending tens of billions of dollars in resources to Ukraine under Biden “with no strategic end in sight.”
But the strategist said “if Trump is very clear, ‘This is what I’m doing, this what I hope to achieve, this is what we want the Ukrainians to do,’” and “more of a plan in place,” then there would be “broader support’” for another assistance package among Republicans in Congress.
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