Ukraine will get defensive weapons from U.S., Klimkin says

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin is convinced
that the Ukrainian government will receive defensive weapons from the U.S., he
said on Nov. 18, as reported by the Ukrinform news agency. He said he can’t say
exactly when but negotiations are currently being conducted.  The types of
weapons are not limited to anti-tank Javelin weapons, but also drones,
counter-battery systems and cyberweapons, he said during a visit to Canada.

The U.S. National Security Council decided on Nov. 14
to give the green light to the presentation of a USD 47 mln grant package to
the Ukrainian government to purchase U.S. defensive arms, including Javelin
anti-tank missiles, reported the abcnews.go.com website. The decision means it
will recommend that the U.S. Congress and the U.S. President Trump approve the
sale of anti-tank missiles to the Ukrainian government.

The “West 2017” large-scale military exercises that
concluded about two months ago indicate that the Russian government is
preparing for offensive operations, Polish Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz
said on Nov. 18, as reported by the Ukrinform news agency. The exercises
“occurred in the space between the North and Black seas and even include the
launches of Iskander ballistic missiles that can have nuclear warheads,” he
told an audience in Canada. “The Russian were preparing not for defense, but
aggression.”

Zenon Zawada: The
conventional wisdom is that providing defensive arms to Ukraine will exhaust
Russian finances in a mutual escalation of weaponry. Yet if the Russians
thought along those lines, they would have withdrawn from Donbas long ago.
Instead, the Russians consider the Ukrainian territory to be part of their
near-abroad that must be controlled for national security interests. And the
events of recent years make it apparent that they will go to extremes to
control this territory.

While we believe it’s possible the U.S. Congress will
approve the sale of weapons, we still have doubts that U.S. President Trump
would approve them, given his isolationist foreign policy position during the
presidential campaign and the high risk involved in escalating arms supplies to
Ukraine, even if they are defensive. That’s despite U.S. Senator Inhofe
recently claiming that the White House is changing its position.

In our view, the sale of defensive arms to Ukraine
raises the risk that Russia will intensify its aggression in Donbas,
particularly in light of the information that Russians are preparing for
military aggression across the continent. While Washington think tanks see only
the U.S. winning this escalation in arms, we are considering the irrational
steps already taken by the Russian government as an indication of what
irrational extremes it can further go.