Trump Gave Ukraine What Obama Withheld

You can’t have a quid pro quo without the other party being aware there’s a quid and reports indicated the Ukrainian government was unaware that aid was allegedly being withheld to pressure them to dig up dirt on Trump opponent Joe Biden. And the aid wasn’t really aid, but was additional Javelin anti-tank missiles bought and paid for by Ukraine with its own money. But as long as we are on the subject of whether or not President Trump was jeopardizing U.S. national security by withholding military aid for political purposes, consider that almost as soon as Trump took office he had restored lethal aid to Ukraine that the Obama-Biden administration had cut off.

Flash back to 2012 when President Obama promised Russian President Dmitry Medvedev at the Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, South Korea that after his re-election he would have more "flexibility" to weaken missile defense and otherwise weaken U.S. resistance to Russian ambitions and aggressions,

In March, 2009, Hillary Clinton had presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with that infamous red "reset button" to symbolize improved ties, but the gift drew smiles as the word "reset" was mistranslated into the Russian for "overcharge" Something else was lost in the translation as well, apparently, as Russian, belligerence and intransigence continued.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s seizure of the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in early 2014 was the direct result of Obama’s promised flexibility. The Obama-Biden administration effectively did nothing in response. That didn’t jeopardize U.S. national security? As the Washington Examiner reported:

Following Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Putin escalated support to separatists in eastern Ukraine that resided in areas with a majority of ethnic Russians. Reserve officers in the Russian military, who also had ties to the Russian military intelligence agency

In 2017, Trump announced plans to reverse the policy of the Obama administration, which stood by silently when Putin’s Russia annexed Crimea and attacked Ukraine, and sell the Ukrainians lethal defensive weaponry, including anti-tank missiles designed to destroy Putin’s Russian tanks in the hands of separatist rebels:

President Donald Trump is expected to announce his approval of a plan to sell anti-tank missiles to the Ukrainian government, a move that would mark a significant escalation in lethal U.S. military support for Ukrainian forces battling Russian-aligned forces in the border region, four State Department sources tell ABC News…

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