WASHINGTON – At the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on March 4, “Ukraine Under Siege,” Helsinki Commission Chair Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) took the U.S. administration to task for its delay in providing defensive military assistance to Ukraine.
“We have a de facto defensive weapons arms embargo on Ukraine … Delay is denial. People are dying,” Rep. Smith said. “Over 6,000 are dead. Many of these are children and women.”
He continued, “[The Ukrainians] need us …they told me off-the-record how profoundly disappointed they are in President Obama, especially in light of people around him saying, ‘Please, Mr. President, this is a time for American leadership.’ When will the decision [to provide defensive military assistance] be made?”
“They need defensive weapons and they need them now,” Rep. Smith stated.
During his remarks, Chairman Smith compared the current situation in Ukraine to the conflict in the Balkans in the 1990s, when the U.S. failed to provide military assistance that would have allowed Bosnians and Croatians to defend themselves against the aggression of Slobodan Milošević.
He also expressed concern about the plight of detained Ukrainian pilot Nadiya Savchenko, who on the day of the hearing was in the 82nd day of her hunger strike in Moscow.