Rand Paul stalls $40 billion in Ukraine aid by denying unanimous consent in the Senate

Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul defied leaders of both parties Thursday and delayed until next week Senate approval of an additional $40 billion to help Ukraine and its allies withstand Russia's three-month old invasion.With the Senate poised to debate and vote on the package of military and economic aid, Paul denied leaders the unanimous agreement they needed to proceed. Final passage is not in doubt.Even so, Paul's objection was a departure from the overwhelming sentiment in Congress in favor of quickly helping Ukraine, as it fights to withstand Vladimir Putin's brutal invasion and tries to discourage him from escalating the war.It was also a rebellion against his fellow Kentucky Republican, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who on Thursday had called on "both sides" to "help us pass this urgent funding bill today." Paul, a libertarian who often opposes U.S. intervention abroad, said he wanted language inserted into the bill, without a vote, that would have an inspector general scrutinize the new spending. It didn't take lawmakers long to add $3.4 billion to his requests for both military and humanitarian programs.The measure includes $6 billion for Ukraine for intelligence, equipment and training for its forces, plus $4 billion in financing to help Kyiv and NATO allies build up their militaries.There's $8.7 billion for the Pentagon to rebuild stocks of weapons it has shipped to Ukraine and $3.9 billion for U.S. troops in the region.The measure also includes $8.8 billion to keep the Kyiv government functioning, more than $5 billion to provide food to countries around the world that rely on Ukrainian crops devastated by the fighting and $900 million to teach English and provide other services to Ukrainian refugees who have moved to the United States.The biggest hurdle to rapid approval of the assistance was cleared this week when Biden and Democrats dropped their demand to include billions more in the measure to bolster U.S. efforts to counter the coronavirus pandemic.