As the Trump whistleblower scandal raged on in Washington D. C., Ukraine found itself close to losing the multimillion-dollar military aid provided annually by the United States, a weighty contribution to the nation’s defense amid its ongoing war with Russian proxies in Donbas.
This time, the political confrontation between U. S. President Donald Trump and his top Democratic rival Joe Biden has nearly torpedoed $391.5 million worth of assistance, the largest amount of defense aid ever allocated for Kyiv.
Fortunately, thanks to bipartisan pressure in Congress, the American military aid came off the hook — but the newest revelations in the ongoing crisis raise questions about whether Trump tried to use it as leverage over Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a bid to discredit Biden a year before the 2020 U.S. presidential race.
Shouting match
For Kyiv, a loud wake-up call rang out in late August, when Trump was reported to be considering freezing the transfer of defense aid to Kyiv, citing his doubt that helping Ukraine serves the U.S. national interest.
The sum at stake was sizable: According to reports, the White House blocked $250 million allocated to Ukraine as part of the Pentagon’s Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative in the fiscal year 2019. Also included was an additional $141.5 million allocated by the Department of State to cover providing Ukraine’s armed forces with new sniper rifles, grenade launchers, and other military hardware.
The allocation was effectively unfrozen on Sept. 11. But that was only the beginning of a new struggle.
On Sept. 23, the Washington Post reported that Trump decided to halt the aid as far back as mid-July — at least a week ahead of his first major phone conversation with Zelensky on July 25. According to reports, Trump then personally asked his acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney to make sure Kyiv would not get the $391.5 million in military aid.
On Sept. 18, a possible motive emerged. An American official filed a classified whistleblower complaint stating that Trump, during the July 25 phone conversation, repeatedly pressed Zelensky to investigate Biden and the Democratic Party over their supposed ties to Ukraine. This led the Democrats in Congress to announce a formal impeachment inquiry into Trump.
The White House made a memorandum of the phone conversation public on Sept. 25, and it confirmed that Trump asked Zelensky to “do us a favor” regarding Biden.
Key contribution
Kyiv meanwhile has plenty of reasons to dread losing American support in its war with Russia, which erupted in 2014 and has claimed at least 13,000 lives.
The United States is still the undisputed leader among the handful of nations providing Ukraine with military hardware at no cost. The U. S. aid includes advanced lethal weaponry for defensive purposes. According to the U. S. Department of Defense, Washington has already allocated $1.5 billion in defense aid for Kyiv since 2014.
Data published by the USAID agency shows that, by the end of the fiscal year 2017, Ukraine became the 6th largest recipient of American military assistance, claiming nearly 1.8 percent of all aid with a total of $253 million allocated in obligations. In this regard, Ukraine only lags behind Afghanistan, Israel, Iraq, Jordan, and Pakistan — key U.S. allies in the Middle East and Central Asia.
For the fiscal year 2018, Congress also approved $250 million for Ukraine.
Contrary to the widespread belief, American taxpayer money is not simply handed over to Ukrainian defense officials.
It is allocated by the U.S. government to finance the activities of U.S. military personnel providing training to Ukrainian troops at the Yavoriv training camp in Ukraine’s far-western Lviv Oblast, the procurement of weapons and equipment from U.S. manufacturers and the work of American advisers consulting Kyiv on defense and security.
An AN/PVS-14 night vision monocular mounted on a combat helmet is demonstrated during an official ceremony at the U.S. Embassy building in Kyiv on Feb. 14. (Ukraine's General Staff of the Armed Forces)
Making a difference
U.S. defense aid has always been something with an effect that is hard to overestimate.
In the earliest days of the war in Donbas, American assistance ensured that Ukrainian forces were supplied with basic equipment — medical kits, fatigues, radio sets, power generators, tactical gear, even ration packages.
In the following years, American assistance focused more on boosting Ukraine’s relatively disadvantaged troops, bringing them up to snuff in modern radio-electronic warfare and battlefield surveillance.
Some of the most crucial equipment supplied by the U.S. in 2018 was two AN/TPQ‑36 counter-battery radar stations. And 2,500 AN/PVS‑14 night vision scopes provided in early 2018 are giving Ukrainian forces a clear tactical advantage over Russian-backed militants who generally don’t have such equipment.
At least 175 Humvee armored cars are also widely engaged in combat in the Donbas. At the peak of U.S. military aid to Ukraine in April 2018, Washington delivered 210 FGM‑148 Javelin anti-tank missiles and 37 launchers valued at $47 million. It was the first lethal weapon to be sent to Kyiv.
In some cases, U.S. assistance has saved the day and given Ukraine weapons it desperately needed — such as the two Island-class patrol boats provided by the U. S. Coast Guard at no cost and expected to join forces that deter Russia in the Azov and Black seas.
New delays
The American president, meanwhile, keeps denying that he extorted Ukraine using the much-needed military assistance.
Speaking after a personal meeting with Zelensky at the United Nations on Sept. 25, Trump reassured journalists the money would be allocated for Kyiv.
Trump has repeatedly bashed European nations for failing to contribute military aid to Ukraine — and could not resist attacking his predecessor, former U. S. President Barack Obama, over his alleged reluctance to provide Kyiv with lethal weaponry.
“We’re working with Ukraine and we want other countries to work with Ukraine…” Trump said.
“They should put up more money. We put up a lot of money. I gave (Ukraine) anti-tank busters that — frankly, President Obama was sending (Ukraine) pillows and sheets, and I gave (Ukraine) anti-tank busters. And a lot of people didn’t want to do that. But I did it.”
Nonetheless, the latest reports suggest that part of the money allocated for Ukraine may not be put to use.
On Sept. 25, Reuters reported that that $30 million out of the $250 million allocated by the U. S. Department of Defense “will not be put in the spending pipeline” by Sept. 30, the last day of the 2019 fiscal year.
However, the Reuters sources could not say whether the delay was caused by Trump’s unsuccessful move to freeze aid for Ukraine.
