Many in Congress Press to Arm Ukraine against Russia
This is all starting to remind me more than I would like of Hitler in the place of Putin blitzkrieging across Europe in the late 1930s and early 1940s.
Jun 11, 2015 · The Senate has included provisions in its military policy bill to armUkraine with antiarmor systems, mortars, grenade launchers and ammunition to aid in ...
WASHINGTON — With the peace process stalled and violence escalating inUkraine, a bipartisan coalition in Congress is defying President Obama and European allies by ...
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Defying Obama, Many in Congress Press to Arm Ukraine
Photo
A woman and her baby on Thursday near their house, which was damaged by shelling in the Ukrainian town of Horlivka.Credit
Mstyslav Chernov/Associated Press
WASHINGTON — With the peace process stalled and violence escalating in Ukraine, a bipartisan coalition in Congress is defying President Obama and European allies by pressing the administration to provide weapons to the embattled nation.
The
Senate has included provisions in its military policy bill to arm
Ukraine with antiarmor systems, mortars, grenade launchers and
ammunition to aid in its fight against Russian-backed separatists. It
would also prevent the administration from spending more than one half
of $300 million in aid for Ukraine unless 20 percent is earmarked for
offensive weapons. The House has passed a similar measure.
So
far, the Obama administration has refused to provide lethal aid,
fearing that it would only escalate the bloodshed and give President
Vladimir V. Putin of Russia a pretext for further incursions.
The
push by lawmakers to arm Ukraine’s beleaguered armed forces threatens
to open a rift between the United States and key allies, especially
Germany and France, at a time when the Obama administration has been
working to demonstrate unified support for extending European economic
sanctions against Russia that are scheduled to expire at the end of
July.
Photo
President Petro O. Poroshenko
of Ukraine examining fortifications and trenches not far from the
eastern city of Mariupol in Ukraine.Credit
Irina Gorbasyova/European Pressphoto Agency
Legislation
to authorize lethal military aid for Ukraine has gone to the White
House before, but Mr. Obama has not acted on it. And while this bill
authorizes the weapons it cannot compel the administration to send them.
The measure is largely meant to put renewed pressure on the White
House.
Senator John McCain,
Republican of Arizona and the chairman of the Senate Armed Services
Committee, who has championed the effort to send arms to Ukraine for more than a year, dismissed the fears that it would worsen the conflict and unravel the international coalition.
Citing
the attacks on Ukraine as “one of the most shameful and dishonorable
acts I have seen in my life,” Mr. McCain said in an interview that the
response so far to Russia’s aggression had been insufficient. “They are
not asking for a single boot on the ground,” he said on the Senate floor
Thursday, adding, “I am a bit taken aback by the vociferous opposition”
to weapons help.
Earlier
this week, the Ukrainian prime minister, Anseniy P. Yatsenyuk, met with
lawmakers in Washington to make the case for military and financial
aid, and was met with sympathy.
“There
has been a strong bipartisan well of support for quite some time for
providing lethal support,” said Representative Adam Schiff, Democrat of
California. “We have offered Russia all kinds of exit ramps and they
were clearly not interested in taking them.”
But
in the latest sign of the reluctance by the White House, Samantha
Power, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, gave a speech
on Thursday in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, in which she excoriated
Russia but did not mention sending offensive weapons as a possibility.
Instead,
she focused on combating the Russian misinformation campaign, praising
the Ukrainians for undertaking a government overhaul and warning only
vaguely of a tougher stance by the United States.
In Kiev on Thursday, a Ukrainian military spokesman reported that three soldiers had been killed
in attacks by Russian-backed separatists, and at least 13 were wounded
in the latest fighting in Donetsk and Luhansk. Officials from the
self-declared, pro-Russian separatist republics said that two of their
soldiers had been killed and at least two more wounded in attacks by the
Ukrainian military.
While the United States has been providing nonlethal assistance, and American military instructors have begun training Ukrainian troops
in western Ukraine, President Petro O. Poroshenko has also made clear
he would welcome more help in the form of weapons, as he seeks to build
up his country’s military to face down the threat from Russia.
“We
have an effective form of cooperation, but not with lethal weapons,
with the United States, Canada, U.K.,” Mr. Poroshenko said in an
interview in his office last week. “We are very satisfied with the
current level of cooperation but we would be happy if the level of this
cooperation would be increased.”
The
bipartisan pressure developing on Capitol Hill, however, comes at an
awkward time. Mr. Putin in recent days has repeatedly blamed the
Ukrainian government for continuing cease-fire violations, while calling on the United States and its European allies to pressure Kiev to fully put the peace accord in place.
That
has set the stage for a pitched debate between lawmakers and the White
House that could well undermine Mr. Obama’s repeated assertion that the
United States sees no military solution to the conflict in Ukraine.
“I
have never seen a more aggressive and emotional debate than I have on
this question,” said Matthew Rojansky, the director of the Kennan
Institute in Washington and expert on Russia and Ukraine. Mr. Rojansky
said the debate is “reminiscent of that when the Soviet Union invaded
Afghanistan.”
Reflecting
the view of many experts, Mr. Rojansky added, “There are valid
arguments on both sides but you don’t get to walk this back. Once we
have done this we become a belligerent party in a proxy war with Russia,
the only country on earth that can destroy the United States. That’s
why this is a big deal.”
In
his confirmation hearing in March, Ashton B. Carter, the secretary of
defense, told senators that he would consider increased military
assistance to Ukraine, including the sale of lethal arms, reflecting the
views of some other senior administration officials.
If
Congress moves forward with restrictions on the money allocated for
Ukraine, a standoff with the White House could also conceivably block
much-needed nonlethal aid.
Lawmakers
who oppose sending weapons to Ukraine note that Washington could never
send enough hardware for Ukraine to defeat Russian-backed forces
militarily. And it is not clear that the Ukrainian military is
sufficiently trained to make proper use of American weapons without
substantial assistance by American military personnel, or that the
weapons would not end up in enemy hands.
“If
you’re playing chess with Russia you have to think two moves ahead,”
said Senator Angus King, independent of Maine, who is among those
lawmakers skeptical of providing arms. “I am afraid this could provoke a
major East-West confrontation.”
Julia
Osmolovskaya, the managing partner of the Institute of Negotiation
Skills, a mediation group in Kiev, said Ukrainians were divided over the
potential benefits of receiving weapons from the United States and the
inherent risk of stoking further violence, and also perplexed by
Washington’s mixed messages.
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