WASHINGTON — With the peace
process stalled and violence escalating in Ukraine, a bipartisan
coalition in Congress is defying President Obama and European allies by pressing
the administration to provide weapons to the embattled nation.
The Senate has included
provisions in its military policy bill to arm Ukraine with antiarmor systems,
mortars, grenade launchers and ammunition to aid in its fight against
Russian-backed separatists. It would also prevent the administration from
spending more than one half of $300 million in aid for Ukraine unless 20
percent is earmarked for offensive weapons. The House has passed a similar
measure.
So far, the Obama administration
has refused to provide lethal aid, fearing that it would only escalate the
bloodshed and give President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia a pretext for further incursions.
The push by
lawmakers to arm Ukraine’s beleaguered armed forces threatens to open a rift
between the United States and key allies, especially Germany and France, at a
time when the Obama administration has been working to demonstrate unified
support for extending European economic sanctions against Russia that are
scheduled to expire at the end of July.
Legislation to authorize lethal
military aid for Ukraine has gone to the White House before, but Mr. Obama has
not acted on it. And while this bill authorizes the weapons it cannot compel
the administration to send them. The measure is largely meant to put renewed
pressure on the White House.
Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona
and the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who has championed the
effort to send arms to Ukraine for more than a year, dismissed the fears
that it would worsen the conflict and unravel the international coalition.
Citing the attacks on Ukraine as
“one of the most shameful and dishonorable acts I have seen in my life,” Mr.
McCain said in an interview that the response so far to Russia’s aggression had
been insufficient. “They are not asking for a single boot on the ground,” he
said on the Senate floor Thursday, adding, “I am a bit taken aback by the
vociferous opposition” to weapons help.
Earlier this week, the Ukrainian
prime minister, Anseniy P. Yatsenyuk, met with lawmakers in Washington to make
the case for military and financial aid, and was met with sympathy.
“There has been a strong
bipartisan well of support for quite some time for providing lethal support,”
said Representative Adam Schiff, Democrat of California. “We have offered
Russia all kinds of exit ramps and they were clearly not interested in taking
them.”
But in the latest sign of the
reluctance by the White House, Samantha Power, the United States ambassador to
the United Nations, gave a speech on Thursday in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital,
in which she excoriated Russia but did not mention sending offensive weapons as
a possibility.
Instead, she focused on combating
the Russian misinformation campaign, praising the Ukrainians for undertaking a
government overhaul and warning only vaguely of a tougher stance by the United
States.
In Kiev on Thursday, a Ukrainian military spokesman reported that three soldiers had been
killed in attacks by
Russian-backed separatists, and at least 13 were wounded in the latest fighting
in Donetsk and Luhansk. Officials from the self-declared, pro-Russian
separatist republics said that two of their soldiers had been killed and at
least two more wounded in attacks by the Ukrainian military.
While the United States has been
providing nonlethal assistance, and American military instructors have begun training Ukrainian troops in western Ukraine, President
Petro O. Poroshenko has also made clear he would welcome more help in the form
of weapons, as he seeks to build up his country’s military to face down the
threat from Russia.
“We have an effective form of
cooperation, but not with lethal weapons, with the United States, Canada,
U.K.,” Mr. Poroshenko said in an interview in his office last week. “We are
very satisfied with the current level of cooperation but we would be happy if
the level of this cooperation would be increased.”
The bipartisan pressure
developing on Capitol Hill, however, comes at an awkward time. Mr. Putin in
recent days has repeatedly blamed the Ukrainian government for continuing
cease-fire violations, while calling on the United States and its European allies to
pressure Kiev to fully put the peace accord in place.
That has set the stage for a
pitched debate between lawmakers and the White House that could well undermine
Mr. Obama’s repeated assertion that the United States sees no military solution
to the conflict in Ukraine.
“I have never seen a more
aggressive and emotional debate than I have on this question,” said Matthew
Rojansky, the director of the Kennan Institute in Washington and expert on
Russia and Ukraine. Mr. Rojansky said the debate is “reminiscent of that when
the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan.”
Reflecting the view of many
experts, Mr. Rojansky added, “There are valid arguments on both sides but you
don’t get to walk this back. Once we have done this we become a belligerent
party in a proxy war with Russia, the only country on earth that can destroy
the United States. That’s why this is a big
deal.”
In his confirmation hearing in
March, Ashton B. Carter, the secretary of defense, told senators that he would
consider increased military assistance to Ukraine, including the sale of lethal
arms, reflecting the views of some other senior administration officials.
If Congress moves forward with
restrictions on the money allocated for Ukraine, a standoff with the White
House could also conceivably block much-needed nonlethal aid.
Lawmakers who oppose sending
weapons to Ukraine note that Washington could never send enough hardware for
Ukraine to defeat Russian-backed forces militarily. And it is not clear that
the Ukrainian military is sufficiently trained to make proper use of American
weapons without substantial assistance by American military personnel, or that
the weapons would not end up in enemy hands.
“If you’re playing chess with
Russia you have to think two moves ahead,” said Senator Angus King, independent
of Maine, who is among those lawmakers skeptical of providing arms. “I am
afraid this could provoke a major East-West confrontation.”
Julia Osmolovskaya, the managing
partner of the Institute of Negotiation Skills, a mediation group in Kiev, said
Ukrainians were divided over the potential benefits of receiving weapons from
the United States and the inherent risk of stoking further violence, and also
perplexed by Washington’s mixed messages.
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