Washington moves ahead with $400 million Ukraine assistance plan Rubio tells Senate

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday, June 3, that Washington is in the final stages of preparing a $400 million military aid package for Ukraine, with an official announcement expected in the near term.

“That’s going through the interagency process right now,” Rubio told a Senate committee, adding that he expects “news on that pretty soon.”

The assistance is being funded under the 2026 Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), which authorises the Pentagon to procure weapons systems and ammunition directly from US defence contractors rather than drawing from existing military stockpiles.

Although Congress approved the funding in December as part of the National Defence Authorisation Act for Fiscal Year 2026, the disbursement has been delayed. The broader $900 billion defence bill allocated $400 million for Ukraine in 2026 and an additional $400 million in 2027 under the same program.

The USAI mechanism is designed to support sustained, long-term military assistance to Kyiv while preserving US readiness by avoiding depletion of current inventories.

Rubio’s remarks come after he previously stated that US support for Ukraine remains “unimpeded” despite the ongoing conflict involving Iran. However, lawmakers and media reports have raised concerns that US stockpiles of certain munitions are being strained, partly due to the demands of that conflict.

By Tamilla Hasanova