The US House of Representatives passed Resolution No.162 “Calling on the President to provide Ukraine with military assistance to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity.” Overall, 348 Congressmen voted for, 48 against.
“The House of Representatives expresses its enormous support to providing military assistance for the settlement of Ukrainian crisis. Due to this administrations inaction, Russian aggression will remain unanswered,” said the lower house speaker John Boehner.
The resolution emphasizes that an independent, democratic, and flourishing Ukraine conforms to the United States’ national interests. The authors of the resolution, Republican Ed Royce and Democrat Eliot Engel, say that the Ukrainian nation needs weapons to defend itself. They lay all the responsibility for the victims in the conflict in eastern Ukraine on Russia.
The document states, in particular, that the Russian Federation under the leadership of Vladimir Putin uses political, economic, and military aggression to undermine Ukraine’s independence and violate its territorial integrity.
The Congress members note that Russian aggression includes the illegal annexation of Crimea and creation and control over separatist groups in other oblasts of Ukraine, including providing them with lethal weapons.
According to the AP, the Department of State says that the Obama Administration is discussing providing lethal weapons, but is waiting to see if the Minsk accords of February 12 will be carried out.
However, more and more people in the US expert circles and the administration itself support the idea of providing Ukraine with lethal defensive weapons. In particular, during the hearings in the US Senate Armed Services Committee the newly appointed Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said that he was very much in favor of providing Ukraine with such weapons. A similar statement was recently made by General Philip Breedlove, Supreme Allied Commander Europe, at the Brussels forum. He emphasized that all tools must be used in countering Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. “Also inaction in providing Ukraine with weapons could be destabilizing,” said Gen. Breedlove.
By the way, the Congress resolution also says that the US and its allies need a long-term strategy of unmasking and countering Putin’s corruption and his repressions in Russia, as well as aggression abroad. Indeed, such a slow response to the revanchist Russia’s aggression reveals the fact that neither the US nor the West in general still have a strategy to rein in Putin.
And probably most importantly, the West does not have a leader like Reagan, who realized that the Soviet Union was “the evil empire” and acted accordingly. What followed was a peaceful collapse of the USSR. Now the incumbent master of the Kremlin is trying to revive the Soviet empire using all tools at hand: intimidation, corruption, energy, and open military aggression.
Quite obviously, one of the ways to stop Putin is providing Ukraine with lethal weapons. In no case should the aggressor be appeased, like many in the West still hope to do, forgetting about the historical precedent of trying to appease Hitler, and what it all led to.
The Day asked Hanna HOPKO, chair of the Verkhovna Rada Foreign Affairs Committee, to comment the significance of the US House of Representatives resolution on providing Ukraine with lethal weapons.
Hanna HOPKO, chair of the Verkhovna Rada Foreign Affairs Committee:
“This is another message to Putin and also to the European Union saying that, despite the toughening of the current sanctions, coercive diplomacy is not off the agenda. Such diplomacy provides strong self-defense in case of escalation of a conflict. It is now obvious that OSCE is not allowed to reinforce special monitoring missions on the occupied territory. Nor is the issue of monitoring the control of Ukraine-Russia border settled. The resolution sends a signal, in case Putin uses the lull to reinforce his positions in Donbas and deal another blow making use of the internal conflict and instability which have now arisen in the country. That is why it is crucial that the question of supporting Ukraine and providing it with opportunities to defend itself (in particular, with lethal weapons which in this case still will be defensive) be brought up in the international context. Ukraine is not planning any attacks. The only thing is that this resolution has no binding power, it only calls on the president to act accordingly.”
Can we expect that the Obama Administration is more prone to provide us with defensive weapons than it has been hitherto? What impression did you get at the Brussels forum at the end of past week?
“Americans like strategic partner also understand the critical situation in Ukraine and its importance for regional security. That is why we see NATO attempts to reinforce its fighting efficiency in NATO countries like Bulgaria, Romania, or Poland, in case of various possible developments of the scenario. Therefore I think it is very important that the question of providing support to Ukraine, and supplying it with defensive weapons in particular, be a constant focus. There were suggestions at the Brussels forum to stop discussing Ukraine and switch over to the Middle East, youth, or democratic processes. I had an impression that there is a lack of understanding, that the Western world lacks a unified, consolidated stand concerning the threat present in Ukraine. They do not realize what it is that the Ukrainian soldiers are now defending: not only their territory, but the freedom of the civilized world. Also, there is no full adherence of the Russian party to the Minsk accords. I mean the withdrawal of heavy weapons, granting the reinforced OBSE mission to the area, so it could work there to its full extent, and the Ukraine-Russia border is also not closed. The so-called humanitarian convoys still go freely every day into Ukraine. That is why it is crucial that Ukraine’s need to defend itself stayed in the limelight of influential American media.”
