Oklahoma Republican Candidates TW Shannon, former Oklahoma House Speaker, and Markwayne Mullin, current Representative for Oklahoma’s Second Congressional District, participated in Tuesday night’s US Senate runoff debate, where the two sparred over whether or not the billions in funding designated by the US for Ukraine, has indeed gone to the war-torn country.

The two disagreed heavily on the matter, but Mullin’s support of the military spending bill was a point that Shannon went after.

Mullin said that “not one penny actually went directly to Ukraine,” and said that this was obvious in the bill’s writing. “In fact, what it did is it replenished the munitions that we had spent because we had been in 20 years of war on terror,” Mullin said. “And a lot of our weapons were out of date. We send them to our partners in Europe, and they sent their weapons to Ukraine.”

Shannon said that he had read the bill and that the bill was actually helping the Russians. “Yeah, it is going to Ukraine and ultimately, if we’re not careful, if we’re not successful in Ukraine, well, what we’re doing is actually going to go to Vladimir Putin. That’s the bigger challenge that I think we should be prepared for,” said Shannon.

Shannon has made similar claims in the past. After the House passed the Additional Ukraine Supplemental Appropriations Act, he said: “Last night, I voted to support funding to replace U.S. military munitions that were left critically low after our continued efforts to aid Ukraine. There’s a misunderstanding around the Additional Ukraine Supplemental Appropriations Act and these dollars. The facts are simple. The Ukrainian military is not trained in US weaponry. The United States has gone through our allies to supply them aid, with the agreement that our allies would pay it forward to Ukraine with Eastern weaponry that our allies have, and Ukrainian soldiers know how to use.”
“Now, it’s time to backfill our own supply and rebuild our stockpile stateside. That’s precisely what this bill does. My vote is a vote to fund the American military arsenal and to continue to support our troops and their operations in Eastern Europe. America is home to the greatest military in the world and I plan to keep it that way,” said Mullin.

According to CSIS.org, “The aid package provides $19 billion for immediate military support to Ukraine, continuing the effort that has been vital to sustaining Ukrainian resistance, and $3.9 billion to sustain U.S. forces deployed to Europe. The package also contains about $16 billion for economic support to Ukraine, global humanitarian relief, and a wide variety of international programs as well as $2 billion for long-term support to NATO allies and DOD modernization programs.”

Mullins said that “not one penny” that went to Ukraine in unsubstantiated, though only $10 billion went towards what he said the bill went to.