As the Trump administration looks for an off-ramp to the Ukraine-Russia conflict, the Senate appears to be heading in the opposite direction as it floats continued “intelligence support” to help Kyiv take back Crimea and other Russian-held territories.
The language is buried in Section 1223 of the proposed Senate version of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), “Intelligence Support for Ukraine.” The provision is being proposed as the Russia-Ukraine conflict continues to escalate, with Moscow threatening strikes on Western Europe in response to drone attacks from Kyiv that have brought the battlefield home.
Ukraine launched the largest drone attack on Moscow since the beginning of the war shortly after the proposed legislation was released on Thursday, Reuters reported, citing Andrei Vorobyov, the governor of Moscow Oblast. Russian air defense systems shot down 555 drones during the attack, state-funded TASS Russian News Agency reported, citing the Russian Ministry of Defense.
“The Secretary of Defense shall provide intelligence support, including information, intelligence, and imagery collection authorized under title 10, United States Code, to the Government of Ukraine for the purpose of supporting military operations of the Government of Ukraine that are intended to defend and retake the territory of Ukraine,” Section 1223 of the proposed Senate version of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) reads.
The language proposed in the Senate version of the 2027 NDAA specifies that Crimea is among these goals. Notably, the 2023 and 2026 NDAA also offer “intelligence” support for Ukraine, but do not go as far as formally recognizing Crimea as Ukrainian territory to be reclaimed.
The Senate proposed the provision after the Russian Ministry of Defense Telegram channel warned on April 15 that further actions of this nature could result in a larger regional war in Europe.
“In this section, the term ‘territory of Ukraine’ includes all territory internationally recognized to be the sovereign territory of Ukraine, including Crimea and the territory the Russian Federation claims to have annexed in Kherson Oblast, Zaporizhzhia Oblast, Donetsk Oblast and Luhansk Oblast,” according to the proposed Senate version of the 2027 NDAA.
President Donald Trump repeatedly campaigned on a pledge to quickly end the Russia-Ukraine war, saying during the 2024 campaign that he could settle the conflict within 24 hours.
“IF I WERE PRESIDENT, THE RUSSIA/UKRAINE WAR WOULD NEVER HAVE HAPPENED, BUT EVEN NOW, IF PRESIDENT, I WOULD BE ABLE TO NEGOTIATE AN END TO THIS HORRIBLE AND RAPIDLY ESCALATING WAR WITHIN 24 HOURS,” Trump said in a Truth Social post on Jan. 26, 2023.
Now, the Senate wants to fling the conflict out of the frying pan and into the fire as the Trump administration searches for a way to make good on Trump’s promise for peace.
Casualty counts in the Russia-Ukraine war are highly disputed. Both the Russian and Ukrainian governments are reluctant to publish official figures of their own losses.
The Ukrainian Defense Ministry said that it had eliminated more than 1.3 million Russian military personnel on June 12.
The Russian Defense Ministry said on Dec. 18, 2024, that it had eliminated more than 1 million Ukrainian military personnel. However, the figure is outdated, and current casualty counts remain unclear.
The United States committed more than $66.1 billion in defense articles and services to Ukraine from February 2022 through December 2025 through Presidential Drawdown Authority, the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative and Foreign Military Financing, according to Ukraine Oversight, the U.S. government’s oversight site for the Ukraine response.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker and ranking member Jack Reed, the Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C., the White House, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment.
The language in the proposed Senate version of the 2027 NDAA differs sharply from what the State Department told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“Discussions to end the Russia-Ukraine war are ongoing,” a State Department spokesperson told the DCNF. “President Trump is committed to stopping the senseless killing and ending this war.”
The announcement from the Russian Ministry of Defense on Telegram specifically lists the addresses of drone manufacturers in Great Britain, Denmark, Latvia and Germany that Russia could hit in retaliation for long-range drone strikes on Russian soil.
The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed in its Telegram post that the decision by Western European nations to increase drone production was a “sharp escalation of the military and political situation.” It shared an alleged list of the drone manufacturers responsible for the increased production, including Fire Point, Horizon Tech, Davinci Avia, Airlogistics, Kort and Terminal Autonomy.
Business As Usual
It’s unclear how the Senate’s proposal to keep fueling the war squares with the administration’s goal of bringing peace to the war-torn region.
“Anything that constrains the president’s ability to negotiate a settlement between Russia and Ukraine, for example, requiring the U.S. to provide certain forms of military aid to Ukraine irrespective of positive developments in peace talks, is counterproductive to ending the war and should be rejected,” Mark Episkopos, Eurasia research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, told the DCNF.
The Ukrainian Embassy in Washington expressed its gratitude for the language in the Senate-proposed version of the 2027 NDAA.
“Ukraine appreciates the continued bipartisan support in the United States Congress for strengthening Ukraine’s ability to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Russia’s ongoing aggression,” Halyna Yusypiuk, a spokeswoman for the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, told the DCNF. “Ukraine’s position remains consistent and principled: all temporarily occupied territories, including Crimea, are an integral part of Ukraine. Ukraine engages with partners on broad security assistance priorities within the framework of strengthening its defense and deterring further Russian aggression.”
A Brief History Of Crimea
The proposed language in the Senate NDAA voices Washington’s desire to help Ukraine take Crimea.
Russia held Crimea for 171 years until 1954. In 1954, Nikita Khrushchev gifted Crimea to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the Pereyaslav Agreement of 1654, which placed Ukraine under Russian rule, according to Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Ukraine then held Crimea for several decades until Russian troops took Crimea on Feb. 27, 2014, Reuters reported. A Crimean referendum was held shortly after on March 16, 2014, in which 96% of Crimeans voted to join the Russian Federation, according to state-backed TASS Russian News Agency.
The referendum was rejected as illegitimate by the West, including the Obama administration, the United Nations, NATO and the European Union. Ukraine had an interim government during the referendum, as the nation had recently seen what some say was a U.S.-backed coup that ousted Viktor Yanukovych, Responsible Statecraft reported.
Former U.S. assistant secretary of state Victoria Nuland was on the ground in Kyiv during the coup, CBS News reported, showing U.S. officials were in the area during the event. Yanukovych wanted to reduce tensions between Russia and Ukraine, the Ukrainian state-backed Kyiv Independent reported.
After the referendum passed, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a treaty incorporating Crimea into the Russian Federation on March 18, 2014, according to the Kremlin.
‘Moving Up The Escalation Ladder’
The escalations had been stacking up in Russia and Ukraine long before the Senate proposed the 2027 NDAA.
Ukrainians launched an attack on a dormitory in Russian-held Luhansk on May 23, Reuters reported, citing Russia’s human rights commissioner, Yana Lantratova. The Russians retaliated for the dormitory attack by using an Oreshnik missile, 600 strike drones and 90 air- sea- and ground-launched missiles on May 24, The Associated Press reported, citing the Ukrainian Air Force.
“These [strikes] were concentrated in Kyiv, and the really big deal was that they used at least one Oreshnik, possibly two,” a former senior researcher at the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs, Philip Pilkington, told the DCNF. “Now they’ve used that before in the East against a factory … that was engaged in missile production or jet engine production, but the fact that they used an Oreshnik in Western Ukraine, near to Kyiv, was kind of a big deal.”
Pilkington said the May 24 Russian attack on Kyiv was a direct escalation in the war.
“Russia is clearly moving up the escalation ladder … that’s what that is,” Pilkington told the DCNF. “The Russians could have done this strike a year ago, they could have done it 18 months ago, and they’re doing it now because they see it as climbing one rung up the escalation ladder.”
Ukraine’s military denied the attack on the dormitory that precipitated this retaliation and escalation from Russia, Reuters reported. Ukrainian officials said that their forces complied with international law, according to the outlet.
“The whole picture has kind of changed, and it feels to me like the Europeans don’t really grasp what’s going on,” Pilkington told the DCNF.
Pilkington said that if Russia were to commit to the strikes proposed on Telegram, Western Europe would remain vulnerable to an attack due to the shuffling of air defense in the region.
NATO is currently only able to provide 5% of the air defense systems that it needs to protect Central or Eastern Europe in the event of an attack, the Financial Times reported on May 29, 2024.
Due to the ongoing conflicts from the Russia-Ukraine war to the Iran war, the U.S. is currently lacking critical munition stockpiles that could take up to five years to be replenished, according to a Center for Strategic and International Studies report.
“I know a lot of the air defense here, so first of all, the Oreshnik can’t be intercepted, you know,” Pilkington told the DCNF. “The issue is all the air defense here was sent to Ukraine, like not all of it, but the vast majority was.”
(DCNF)