Posted on 12/23/2017 11:00:06 AM PST by GonzoII
Ukraine will soon have more lethal American-made weapons to help it fight Russian-backed separatists.
U.S. officials said Friday that the Trump administration approved a plan to provide lethal weapons to Ukraine, in a long-awaited move that deepens America's involvement in the military conflict and may further strain relations with Russia.
The new arms include American-made Javelin anti-tank missiles that Ukraine has long sought to boost its defenses against Russian-backed separatists armed with tanks that have rolled through eastern Ukraine during violence that has killed more than 10,000 since 2014. Previously, the U.S. has provided Ukraine with support equipment and training, and has let private companies sell some small arms like rifles.
The officials describing the plan weren't authorized to discuss it publicly and demanded anonymity.
The move is likely to become another sore point between Washington and Moscow, as President Donald Trump contends with ongoing questions about whether he's too hesitant to confront the Kremlin. Ukraine accuses Russia of sending the tanks, and the U.S. says Moscow is arming, training and fighting alongside the separatists.
Trump had been considering the plan for some time after the State Department and the Pentagon signed off earlier this year. President Barack Obama also considered sending lethal weapons to Ukraine, but left office without doing so.
The State Department, responsible for overseeing foreign military sales, would not confirm that anti-tank missiles or other lethal weapons would be sent. But in a statement late Friday, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the U.S. had decided to provide "enhanced defensive capabilities" to help Ukraine build its military long-term, defend its sovereignty and "deter further aggression."
(Excerpt) Read more at france24.com ...
From reading elsewhere, it seems the government is giving permits to sell to Ukraine. It’s not out of our budget or stockpiles.
The way Trump would do it.
Already a thread on this topic from a few hours ago.
Putinists demand that we stay out of Russia’s so called sphere of influence, which is the result of what years of Bush and Obama and giving up on Western Europe have done to us.
You have allowed two-faced Vladdy Poots to fill the leadership vacuum and now see the world through his lenses.
Supporting Putin’s worldview means supporting the revival of the Russian and Soviet Empire power paradigms alongside some hefty Islamic allies like Turkey, Iran, and Syria to have their way in their “sphere” — at the compromise of freedom-seeking Eastern European countries and not to mention the integrity of Israel. All while figuring every which way to destabilize democratic Christian Western societies in the process especially the U.S.
Do you know how much pathetic bullying from Russia that countries like Poland and Ukraine have faced in choosing to do things like tear down their Lenin statues and ugly Soviet war monuments? The tearing down of Lenin statues, renaming of Soviet oppressor streets, and neighborhoods have only taken place in thr past two-three years in Ukraine! Putin’s Russia wants to switch back the clock.
Its not in the interests of OUR sphere to have Putin forcing his way on the Ukraine and his way in the Middle East. Spare me the false banner of Christian Orthodoxy he claims to wave by doing so. Lovely he builds churches in Syria next to Russian army bases.
Puh leeze. Putin operates under the same sickle and hammer Soviet flag, the same Soviet anthem, and his government remains the direct inheritor of the Bolshevik terrorists. He is still KGB and has no other frames of reference under which to operate his leadership. (Well he does admire some repressive tsars.)
The Crimea annexation and Ukrainian conflict has caused so much damage in terms of relations between Orthodox faithful in Ukraine and Russia, and not to mention Ukrainian Catholics and Protestants who want their country to be in line with the Western Christian sphere.
Hence as of this year, Ukraine celebrates BOTH Christmases as official holidays. Western on Dec. 25th and Eastern on Jan 7th. Its their right to be a spiritual bridge between East and West and not strangled to some sick Neo-Soviet, Neo-Imperial anti-Western delusion of Vladimir Putin’s.
Nice to see Trump taking HILLARY’S approach to Russia...
Russia hasn’t been playing ball on North Korea so Trump uses the stick on them.
>Its not in the interests of OUR sphere to have Putin forcing his way on the Ukraine and his way in the Middle East. Spare me the false banner of Christian Orthodoxy he claims to wave by doing so. Lovely he builds churches in Syria next to Russian army bases.
And yet you advocate forcing Kiev’s rule on Russia speaking people in the east that want nothing to with the coup government and gangs of neo-nazis who run the country.
Soros really needs to hire better trolls.
I do not deny the neo-Nazis sabotaging things, nor that Poroshenko has got to go - but they don’t represent the overall commitment of average people in the country (including those who are ethnic Russian or part Russian.) . To seek a path freed from Putin’s grip.
Don’t miss forest for the trees. Hillary would have done things on Soros’ terms. And she would never for example: claim Jerusalem the capital of Israel, build a wall on our southern border, take the U.N. to task, nor take a hard line on China and North Korea.
Trump’s Ukraine move is countering two-faced Putin’s delusional aims on very different terms.
Putin’s delusion: revive the Russian Empire/Soviet Union with cemented Islamic allies Turkey, Iran, and Syria at the expense of Israel and of Eastern European countries seeking freedom from the Soviet legacy. That is the vision for Russia’s “sphere.”
Not to mention the undermining of Christian Western democratic societies to boot all while stashing cash of Russian oligarchs in now sanctioned bank accounts in Europe and the U.S.
Ukraine’s govt is a mess, but the people are clear: they want their own path - not be strangled into submission by Putin.
>I do not deny the neo-Nazis sabotaging things, nor that Poroshenko has got to go - but they don’t represent the overall commitment of average people in the country (including those who are ethnic Russian or part Russian.) . To seek a path freed from Putin’s grip.
They’re already free. Western Ukraine doesn’t have the Russians calling the shots. The conflict here is the coup government of Kiev wanting to conquer and oppress the Russian speaking areas. That conflict would end if the western government just divided the country along ethnic lines and gave up their claims to the east.
That’s been the reasonable solution from the start but that’s something that the government in Kiev refuses to do so the fighting continues.
Did you just invent that?
Like every other lethal weapon ever placed in the hands of Ukraine, these anti tank missiles will be sold out the back door to the highest bidder, or lost to the DRA the next time the mighty Ukies screw up the courage to go on the offensive.
Perhaps of Russia does not want their tanks blown up, they should stop shipping in tanks. Or if it’s anti-tank missiles that he hates so much perhaps we should Supply M1 Abrams Tanks to Ukraine, that seems to be okay with him.
Seriously, “separatists” have fricking TANKS, and Putin plays innocent with a straight face?!
Thank you for pointing out the obvious: Putin’s sabotaging of the fringes of Western Europe, cementing alliances with the Islamic world (Turkey, Iran, Syria) to undermine the Middle East. Nonsense needs to stop. Thank God for Trump!
Oh please;
hitler used the same rationale in
Czechoslavakia and Poland.
Yes! So true aumrl, and if you listen even to the way two-faced Vladdy Poots convinced his own people of Crimea et al. Its straight from the Hitler handbook. And rhetoric. (You can read the speeches.) - Putin knows how to prey on the hurt pride of his people, the way Hitler did - and he uses the grievances of the Soviet collapse to justify his military aggressions.
And the West is finally waking up and we finally have leaders able to take a stand. Thank GOD.
The way Hitler did in Germany pre-WWII.**
>Oh please;
hitler used the same rationale in
Czechoslavakia and Poland.
In Czechoslovakia case, he wasn’t wrong. The Czechs were busying trying to ethnic cleanse the Germans from the Studentland through violence. They were doing because they saw the danger of having a non-Czech minority dominating an area of land that might later result in an invasion. This, of course, caused an invasion, but it just goes show that’s how people’s minds work when dealing with such problems.
Creating a country with large ethnic minorities is a bad idea and the proper solution to such issues with the division of the land, not ethnic cleansing or extermination.
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