House Nears Ukraine Aid Vote Amid Republican Divisions

The House is expected to vote Thursday on a major security package for Ukraine after enough Republicans joined Democrats to collect the required 218 signatures to force a vote.

Debate is scheduled to begin Wednesday on the package, which would authorize hundreds of millions in security aid and provide Ukraine up to $8 billion in loans and impose a range of sanctions on Russia’s banking and energy sectors.

House Republican opponents argue the bill is politically charged and runs counter to President Donald Trump’s efforts to negotiate peace between Russia and Ukraine.

Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska is still courting his fellow Republicans.

“I hear from some of the leaders, ‘Hey, this is getting ahead of the president.’ I don’t care,” Bacon told NOTUS. “Seventy percent of Americans want this done. I’m a Reagan Republican, and this is standing up to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and Russia.”

“The message out of the White House right now has been a lack of moral clarity between Putin and [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy,” Bacon said. “I have total clarity on this, and so I hope the Republicans put their Reagan hats on and do the right thing here.”

Bacon and other supporters intensified their push Tuesday in a “Dear Colleague” letter, obtained by NOTUS, urging lawmakers to vote in favor of the measure. Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Democratic Reps. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio and Mike Quigley of Illinois joined Rep. Kevin Kiley, a California independent who caucuses with Republicans, in arguing Congress must act.

“By passing the Ukraine Support Act this week, Congress will equip the President with critical tools to help Ukraine save lives and increase pressure on Putin’s regime to end this war,” they wrote. “At this time, no legislation exists to get Ukraine the tools it needs to defend itself and to pressure Russia to stop the war.”

The action comes as Ukrainian forces have largely halted Russia’s spring offensive, with Moscow’s troops gaining only a fraction of the territory they did this time last year, according to the Institute for the Study of War. Putin, meanwhile, is resisting pressure from within his government to lower defense spending and end the war because of the strain on Russia’s economy.

The Senate has been sitting for months on its own bill to sanction Russia. Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) and Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), the bill’s sponsors, have said they are still working to revive it.

Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, introduced his bill for more Ukraine support in the House in April 2025. But last month Kiley provided the breakthrough signature, joining all House Democrats, Bacon and Fitzpatrick.

The House bill reaffirms U.S. support for Ukraine, offering it up to $8 billion in loans to buy American military equipment and authorizing $300 million annually in 2026 and 2027 to train and equip Ukraine’s military.

Opponents of the bill, seeking to chip away at Republican support, argue that parts of the bill are outdated. They note the bill would authorize $300 million this year for Ukraine’s military but that Congress has already approved $400 million.

They also point out that the bill calls on NATO allies to dedicate at least 2% of their economic output to national defense before NATO’s Washington Summit, an event that the alliance held in 2024. The figure itself lags behind a newer pledge from allies that they would spend 5 percent of their economies on national defense.

The Ukraine package would also benefit the Baltic countries — Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia — with each country receiving $30 million per year to help buy American military equipment.

Bacon, co-chair of the House Baltic Caucus, said that during a visit to the region last week, leaders voiced relief that Trump recently said he would send 5,000 troops to Poland, effectively overruling Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s decision to halt the deployment of the U.S. brigade there.

Because the brigade would have fed smaller units throughout the Baltics, those countries are waiting to learn which units will replace it, Bacon said.

“The U.S. presence there is the No. 1 deterrence to Russia, and when Hegseth said he wasn’t going to [send] that unit, that was a kick in the guts to all of these countries,” Bacon said. “There is no information about who is replacing that brigade, so they want that information. This is their livelihoods, their survival.”