A US congressman from President Donald Trump’s own party has asked Trump to hold an urgent briefing for lawmakers regarding the situation around the halt in military aid to Ukraine.
Fitzpatrick expressed concern over reports that the United States has suspended deliveries of previously approved assistance to Ukraine at a time when Russia is continuing its summer offensive.
The White House confirmed on Tuesday it was pausing key weapons deliveries to Ukraine – shipments previously approved by the Trump administration.
Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said Wednesday it has received no official notice about stopping or delaying US military aid shipments and is working to clarify the situation after reports of paused deliveries.
Fitzpatrick, one of only a handful of Republican lawmakers with an “Excellent” rating from the “GOP For Ukraine” watchdog group, demanded answers from the administration:
“While the United States needs to continue to strengthen our Defense Industrial Base here at home, we can and must simultaneously provide urgently needed assistance to our allies who are defending their freedom from brutal invading dictators,” Fitzpatrick wrote. “To not do both is unacceptable.”
“This is a defining moment: Ukraine’s courage must continue to be met with action, and the United States must continue to lead with clarity and purpose. There can be no half-measures in the defense of liberty,” he wrote.
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) also said he is looking “very intensely” into whether the Pentagon’s freeze is a breach of Ukraine aid legislation that Congress passed in 2024.
“If you want to get [Russian strongman Vladimir Putin] to the negotiating table in good faith, you have to put leverage and pressure on him, and that would be Lindsey Graham’s economic sanctions and the flow of weapons,” McCaul said. “If you take the flow of weapons out, yeah, then you’re not, you don’t have the leverage over Putin to negotiate.”
Last month, Fitzpatrick, whose state of Pennsylvania hosts many voters of Ukrainian descent, pleaded with Congress for leniency for refugees from the Russian invasion.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers led by Fitzpatrick and Bill Keating (D-MA) had introduced a bill, the Ukrainian Adjustment Act 2025, urging the administration to stabilize the lives of Ukrainians who reside in the US on humanitarian parole.
“I respectfully request an emergency briefing from the White House and the Department of Defense on the Pentagon’s recent review of our nation’s weapons and munitions stockpiles, as well as the decision to withhold urgent, lifesaving military assistance to Ukraine,” Fitzpatrick wrote in his letter this week.