The Pentagon has sent a recommendation to provide Ukraine with high-tech, anti-tank weapons to the White House, the NBC News reported on Aug.4, referring to its own sources among the U.S officials.
The proposed aid includes Javelin missiles with an estimated cost of around $50 million.
While a Pentagon spokesperson didn’t confirm the information to NBC, the American TV station’s sources said that indeed no decision has been made yet but Pentagon is in favor of the move.
“It is the right move and I see the fingerprints of Secretary of Defense (James) Mattis all over it,” Retired Admiral James Stavridis, a former commander of NATO and an NBC News analyst said.
Mattis expressed full support for Ukraine and supported the preservation of sanctions against Russia as an aggressor country during a meeting with Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko in June in Washington.
The Presidential Administration press service has reported that Poroshenko and Mattis discussed the reinforcement of defense potential of Ukraine and the further development of strategic partnership with the U.S in the defense sector.
“Ukraine needs the lethal weapons from U.S. to bring peace to our eastern borders,” Andriy Parubiy, the speaker of Ukrainian Parliament told during the press conference on June 27.
“Russian army tank forces played a key part in Ukraine’s defeat in the fight for Debaltseve (a town in Donetsk Oblast) in 2015,” Parubiy said. “The anti-tank Javelin missiles would help the Ukrainian army to stop the Russian forces attack.”
Parubiy said that Ukrainian army has already got many non-lethal weapons from the U.S: radars, telecommunication devices, armored cars and much more.
But Ukraine still needs the U.S lethal weapons due to the Russian-backed separatist’s constant Minsk Agreement violations and attacks with the heavy weapons involvement.
Russia’s war against Ukraine has killed at least 2,727 soldiers. July has become one of the deadliest months for Ukraine’s Army in 2017.
A surge in fighting in several hotspots in Ukraine’s Donbas over the last three weeks – from Krymske village in Luhansk Oblast to Avdiyivka and Kransohorivka cities in Donetsk Oblast – cost Ukrainian army at least 17 soldiers killed and 96 wounded, according to a Kyiv Post count based on information from the military, volunteers and local media reports.
“This is a technically decided question. We have the total support of the both parties of the U.S Parliament, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Paul Ryan confirmed that to me during our conversation,” Parubiy said.
Moreover, Parubiy claimed, there is even the list of weapons that the U.S could provide to Ukraine. “This depends on U.S political will. The U.S didn’t refuse to give us the lethal weapons as it was a year ago. So I hope, this question would be solved until the end of 2017,” Parubiy said.
