Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) suggested that Ukrainian leaders are spending United States aid money on “beach houses all over the world.”
In an appearance on Newsmax, Tuberville bemoaned the financial situation of the U.S., urging the government to focus on that before sending out any foreign funds. He turned his attention to Ukraine, where he claimed that U.S. aid money was being squandered on the personal needs of Ukrainian leaders.
“We are printing $80,000 a second, borrowing $80,000 a second, $4.6 million a minute!” he said. “And we’re thinking about giving Ukraine more money to waste — these people can’t buy any more houses, and what they bought, they’ve got beach houses all over the world. Let’s start thinking about our country.”
The Department of Defense Inspector General’s Office, as of February, had more than 50 investigations into military aid to Ukraine, but no allegations of corruption have been substantiated.
Among the usually hawkish Senate GOP, Tuberville has stood out in his opposition to Ukraine aid. He has previously argued that the country will inevitably lose to Russia and that the extensive aid given by the U.S. has been squandered due to corruption.
The Alabama Republican previously complained about Ukraine’s acquisition of billions of U.S. dollars to finance things unrelated to the military.
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“The United States has no strategic interest in the war in Ukraine or in Eastern Europe in general,” he said in October. “The requested $60 billion for Ukraine would be in addition to the more than $100 billion that Congress has already agreed to give them — for everything from Ukraine’s farmers to Ukrainian bureaucrat pensions — at a time when our own farmers are struggling, and too many American pension funds are in trouble. This is a staggering amount of funding, more than Russia’s entire annual defense budget.”
Ukraine has struggled with corruption since its independence in 1991 and has dealt with allegations of bribery even in recent years amid its war with Russia. However, President Volodymyr Zelensky has worked to improve his country’s image, ousting several officials in connection to corruption scandals last year.
