Mike Quigley: “I cannot in good faith support this legislation without the inclusion of funding for the Ukraine Security Assistance…”

“I cannot in good faith support this legislation without the inclusion of funding for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative. For this reason, at the appropriate time, I will offer a motion to recommit this bill back to committee. If the House rules permitted, I would have offered the motion with an important amendment to this bill. My amendment would protect funding for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative that has been included in this Defense appropriations bill since 2016. USAI is a major reason why the Ukrainian army is a much different, much better army than it was when the Russians took Crimea a decade ago. This program is central to the strategy to help Ukraine fight Russian aggression and, therefore, central to our own efforts to protect democracy across the globe. Ukraine's battle for its independence has not ended. Our support for them must not end, either. Many people in this room voted to provide $61 billion in supplemental funding for Ukraine, but it is important to remember that $13 billion went to replenish U.S. equipment, $7 billion went to strengthen our industrial base and to increase weapons production, and $7 billion went to bolster U.S. forces in Europe and the Middle East. It is still not enough. As recently as March, Russia was firing around 10,000 shells a day compared to just 2,000 from the Ukrainian side. Putin has, indeed, doubled down, dramatically increasing his military production to the point of 29 percent of his budget.…”