As fighting in Ukraine’s east intensified, Russian convoys continued to enter into Ukraine (the OSCE reported the border crossing of the 29th convoy of vehicles from Russia) and Nadiya Savchenko marked the first anniversary of her capture by Russian-backed forces in Ukraine, the European Union agreed to extend sanctions on Russia. At the same time, Russian President Vladimir Putin rattled his saber a bit more forcefully, declaring that the Russian military would add 40 new intercontinental ballistic missiles to its inventory. Citing Mr. Putin’s “nuclear chest-thumping, on top of Russia’s seizure of Crimea and support for the conflict in eastern Ukraine,” former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Steven Pifer wrote: “Washington and NATO should not be intimidated. That would only invite more saber-rattling. Western leaders should not let Putin’s comments go unanswered.”
Here in the United States, news media reported that the push to arm Ukraine had resumed. The Hill, which covers developments on Capitol Hill, noted: “Senators are adopting a new tactic in their push for President Obama to arm Ukraine against Russian-backed separatists. Lawmakers in both parties are supporting a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would give the Obama administration $300 million for Ukrainian security assistance. The provision specifies that half of the funding would be withheld until at least 20 percent of the money is spent on lethal aid.” The story went on to quote Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) as saying that a decision from President Barack Obama on lethal aid “is long overdue.” But, The Hill also cited a senior administration official as saying that the White House continues “to believe that there is no military resolution to the crisis” in Ukraine.
The Hill also pointed out that Sens. McCain and Rob Portman (R-Ohio) also want Secretary of State John Kerry to provide a list of all pending requests for military sales to Ukraine, along with information on when the requests were submitted and when the administration expects to make a decision. The senators have vowed to keep up the pressure by requiring a report from the administration every three months until Ukraine’s territorial integrity is restored.
Meanwhile, on the House side of Congress, Rep. Rodney Felinghuysen (R-N.J.), chairman of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, succeeded in including nearly $1 billion in the Fiscal Year 2016 Defense Appropriations Bill to counter Russian aggression. That sum includes $789.3 million to support increased military capability, readiness and responsiveness to deter further destabilization in Central and Eastern Europe, and $200 million for further training, equipment, lethal weapons of a defensive nature, logistics support, supplies and services, and sustainment of the military and national security forces of Ukraine. “The United States has already provided significant ‘non-lethal’ assistance to the Ukraine government as they battle Russian aggression,” said Rep. Frelinghuysen. “Ukraine’s leaders have personally appealed to us for defensive ‘lethal’ weaponry to help them defend their own territory from the Russian onslaught. It’s about time the president and our military leaders help Ukraine react seriously to the Russian threat.”
To critics who say that arming Ukraine would make the U.S. a “belligerent party” in a war with Russia, David Kramer, senior director for human rights and democracy at the McCain Institute for International Leadership, had a very succinct and clear answer. In a letter to the editor of The New York Times, he wrote: “The only belligerent party in this conflict is Russia, which invaded Ukraine more than a year ago. As a signer of the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, in which Ukraine pledged to relinquish its nuclear weapons, the United States (along with Britain and Russia) vowed to uphold Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Living up to that memorandum and stopping further Russian aggression in Ukraine are good reasons to provide assistance to Ukraine.”
The sad truth is that – although U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power last week told the people of Ukraine during her visit to Kyiv that “America is clear-eyed when it comes to seeing the truth about Russia’s destabilizing actions in your country” – the U.S. has yet to do the right thing. Ukrainian Americans, who celebrated the passage of the Ukraine Freedom Support Act of 2014 and its signing into law by the president, have become fed up with obfuscation, stonewalling and prevarication. At the polls, they are sure to remember who held up provision of the defensive lethal weapons Ukraine needs.