U.S. debate on arming Ukraine puts pressure on Russia, Trump
WASHINGTON — Seeking leverage with Russia, the Trump administration has reopened consideration of long-rejected plans to give Ukraine lethal weapons, even if that would plunge the United States deeper into the former Soviet republic’s conflict.
The deliberations put pressure on President Donald Trump, who’s fighting perceptions he is soft on the Kremlin amid investigations into whether his campaign colluded with Moscow to interfere in the 2016 U.S. election.
The proposal, endorsed by the Pentagon and the State Department, reflects his administration’s growing frustration with Russian intransigence on Ukraine and a broader deterioration in U.s.-russian ties. The tensions were seen most recently in Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s order for America to eliminate more than half its diplomatic personnel in Russia.
Awaiting Trump and his closest advisers is an authorization to provide Ukraine with antitank and potentially anti-aircraft capabilities, according to U.S. officials familiar with plan. It’s not dramatically different from proposals rejected by President Barack Obama, who feared an influx of U.S. weapons could worsen the violence responsible for more than 10,000 deaths in Ukraine since 2014 and create the possibility of American arms killing Russian soldiers. Such a scenario could theoretically put the nuclear-armed nations closer to direct conflict.
While Obama was still in office, Trump’s campaign also rejected the idea of arming Ukraine, preventing it from being included in the Republican platform.
Now, however, it’s under discussion by Trump’s senior national security aides, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to talk about the matter publicly. While there is no deadline for a decision and one is not expected imminently, the debate is going on as U.S. and Russian diplomats prepare to meet as early as this coming week to explore ways to pacify eastern Ukraine, where Russian-backed separatists have fought the central government for three years.
“The Russians have indicated some willingness to begin to talk with us about a way forward on Ukraine,” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said after seeing his Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, last week in the Philippines.