Ukraine Fighting Serves as Donald Trump’s First Major Test
The president should send weapons to Ukraine to help fight Russian-backed forces, a key Republican lawmaker says.
By Paul D. Shinkman | Senior National Security Writer Feb. 2, 2017, at 1:42 p.m.
.. bit more useful detail ..
Ukrainian soldiers and tanks outside a building used as a base on Feb. 2, 2017, in Avdiivka, Ukraine. (Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images)
Renewed fighting in east Ukraine .. http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-07-08/in-ukraine-a-wary-eye-toward-america .. has become the first major international test of the Trump administration and could embolden Russia without a strong U.S. response, the chairman of the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee told the president on Thursday, urging him to follow through on permission Congress has already granted to send weapons to Ukraine.
Sen. John McCain pointed out in a letter to President Donald Trump that forces backed by Moscow began testing the shaky cease-fire lines around the Ukrainian town of Avdiivka almost immediately after Trump spoke by telephone with the Russian president on Saturday.
"Vladimir Putin is moving quickly to test you as commander-in-chief," the Arizona Republican wrote. "America's response will have lasting consequences."
Even during relative calm in recent months along the shaky cease-fire line enforced by the Organisation for Security and Co-Operation in Europe, units along Avdiivka would receive sporadic shelling and sniper fire, resulting in as many as one or two casualties per day.
Many now-vacant apartment buildings near the ceasefire line in Avdiivka bear the scars of intense combat, like this one from last summer. (Paul D. Shinkman for USN&WR)
After fighting in Ukraine began in 2014 following the Russian annexation of the Crimean peninsula, President Barack Obama issued sanctions against Moscow and stepped up U.S. logistical support for Ukraine, including sending benign military supplies and deploying roughly 300 U.S. forces to support a larger training mission for Ukrainian soldiers outside the western town of Lviv. Obama stopped short of providing weapons, over concerns that would provoke war with Russia.
The latest Pentagon spending bill allows for the U.S. to provide "defensive lethal assistance" to the Ukrainian government to defend the provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk, known collectively as the Donbas, against rebels there trying to break away from Kiev.
Trump's intentions for Ukraine remain unclear. In July, as the Republican candidate, his campaign team reportedly stripped language from a party platform statement urging for providing weapons to Ukraine in favor of calling for less specific American support for the former Soviet nation. Since the inauguration, the Trump administration has indicated it's considering lifting the sanctions against Russia, a sentiment buoyed by senior members of the administration, including National Security Adviser Mike Flynn, a retired chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and newly sworn in Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, both of whom have had close professional ties to Russia.