Politico writes that these funds were removed from the US defense budget draft, and their approval was voted on separately. However, Democrats fear that the allocation of aid to Ukraine in a separate bill will be presented by Russian propaganda as a rejection of Ukraine.
The day before, it became known that Republicans in the US House of Representatives decided to remove $300M in aid to Ukraine from the bill on defense spending and vote on them separately, despite Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s promise not to do so. The $300M is unrelated to the $24B of additional funding for Ukraine that the White House requested in August, which drew opposition from far-right Republicans.
Against this background, the US Senate approved an alternative draft of the short-term budget resolution, which, among other things, provides Ukraine with $4.5B for defense spending and more than $1.6B for economic support.