U.S. Senate Backs Record Defense Budget, Allocate $400 Million to Ukraine

The U.S. Senate on Wednesday approved a sweeping national defense bill for fiscal year 2026 that includes $400 million in military assistance for Ukraine.

The Gaze reports this, referring to Ukrinform and Politico.

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) passed the upper chamber by a 77–20 vote, following its approval by the House of Representatives last week. The legislation now awaits the signature of President Donald Trump.

The bill authorizes a record $901 billion defense budget, exceeding the administration’s initial request by $8 billion and marking the largest annual allocation for U.S. national defense to date.

Under the legislation, Ukraine will receive $400 million through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, a Pentagon-run program that finances the training, equipping, and modernization of Ukraine’s armed forces. The funding is intended to strengthen Kyiv’s ability to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity while supporting broader institutional reforms within Ukraine’s defense sector.

Beyond assistance to Ukraine, the bill places new constraints on the Pentagon’s ability to reduce U.S. military deployments abroad. It prohibits any sustained reduction of American troop levels in Europe below 76,000 personnel without congressional approval and formal consultations with NATO allies. Lawmakers also limited the administration’s ability to relinquish the long-standing U.S. role as NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe.

Additional provisions restrict cuts to U.S. troop levels in South Korea and impose oversight measures on the Pentagon, including requirements to provide Congress with unredacted operational footage related to counter-narcotics missions in Latin America.

Several of these clauses are widely seen as a congressional rebuke of the Trump administration’s national security strategy, which has questioned long-term U.S. military commitments overseas and criticized European allies.

As The Gaze reported earlier, the United States is preparing a new round of sanctions targeting Russia’s energy sector as a contingency measure if President Vladimir Putin refuses to accept a peace agreement with Ukraine.

Read also on The Gaze: Why Donald Trump is Interested in a Quick, Not Quality, Completion of the War in Ukraine