As part of the federal government 2019 budget, the Pentagon and the State Department set aside a combined $391 million to buy an array of weapons and military training for Ukraine. But the Trump administration sat on the money. With the end of the fiscal year looming, Congress leaned on the White House to free up the cash.
Considering the United States’ strong support for Ukraine since Russia’s 2014 invasion and annexation of the country’s strategic Crimea region, the funding impasse seemed… weird. Then in mid-September, news broke that Trump had been using the money as leverage as he leaned on the Ukrainian government to open an investigation into the son of potential Democratic presidential rival Joe Biden.
Why was that money so important—to Ukraine, and to America? What exactly was in that deal?
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Russian roulette. For 2019, Congress approved two separate funds to buy weapons and other military assistance for Ukraine—$141 million fell under the State Department budget, $250 million would come from the Pentagon’s accounts.
Lawmakers specified that $50 million of the military’s share of the funding would pay for lethal weaponry, including sniper rifles and rocket-propelled grenades. Congress explained that the weapons would “improve anti-armor, anti-personnel and counter-sniper capabilities against Russian-led separatists.”
Left unsaid in the official justification for the arms-transfer is Russia’s central role in the Ukraine crisis. Russia directly supports rebel forces that since April 2014 have been fighting government troops in Ukraine’s Donbass region. Thousands have died.
Russia fires artillery over the border to pound Ukrainian positions. Russian missiles shoot down Ukrainian drones, helicopters and warplanes. Russian T-72 tanks have crossed the border to reinforce lightly-armed separatists who have no tanks of their own. In providing anti-tank rockets, the United States isn’t really helping Ukraine to fight rebels. It’s helping Ukraine to fight Russia.
Tailor-made. The rockets in question seem to be the PSRL-1 model, manufactured by AirTronicUSA in Texas. The PSRL-1 is an odd weapon, but one that’s uniquely suited to the war in Donbass. It essentially is an American copy of a Russian weapon, the RPG-7. Ukrainian troops were first spotted with the PSRL-1 back in 2018.
With a rocket diameter of 40 millimeters and a warhead weighing less than 10 pounds, the PSRL-1 isn’t the most powerful weapon in the world. But it’s easy to carry, easy to fire and, traveling as far as half a mile, it can damage the sensors and treads on a tank and knock it out of fighting.
“It’s not an offensive weapon,” AirTronicsUSA executive Richard Vandiver told Voice of America, “but if [Russian] armor starts to cross the river then I would assume that the Ukrainian defense forces would employ our systems to stop the armor.”
The sniper rifle in the Ukraine arms deal most likely is the Barrett M107. Washington began supplying the powerful weapon to Ukrainian troops back in 2015 in order to replace Russian-made Dragunov rifles that, while reliable, lack the range and precision of Western-made weapons. A trained sniper wielding a .50-caliber M107 can reliably hit targets more than a mile away.
Black Sea fleet. Legislators also designated $17 million for naval assistance. The money would buy coastal sensors and communications networks and allow U.S. and allied advisers to continue expanding Ukraine’s port infrastructure so that it can accommodate American and NATO warships.
The naval aspect is important. Despite bordering the strategic Black Sea, Ukraine never fully developed its navy. At the time of the Russian invasion, the Ukrainian fleet included just one large warship.
The vessel, the Soviet-made missile frigate Hetman Sahaydachniy, managed to avoid Russia’s naval onslaught in 2014. But dozens of smaller Ukrainian warships were less lucky. The Russians sank them or seized them.
After 2014, Ukraine was left with a rump of a fleet. While Kiev builds new patrol boats, NATO warships have taken turns sailing along the Ukrainian coast. In a sort of circle of mutual maritime support, American-funded improvements to sensors and ports help Ukraine help its allies defend Ukrainian waters.
The work is centered on Ochakiv naval base near Crimea. American money is paying for new and improved piers, a new floating dock and repair facilities. Perhaps most importantly, Washington has funded a pair of “maritime operations centers.”
In the event of a naval escalation, Ukrainian, American and NATO officers might use these high-tech headquarters to command a multi-national fleet that could sail into the Black Sea to confront the Russians.
The balance of the $400 million in funding would pay for training and spare parts, among other materials and services.
Why the delay? For five years under the Obama and Trump administrations, shipments of U.S.-bought weaponry and other military support arrived like clockwork in Ukraine. Then in the summer of 2019, the flow of aid abruptly stopped.
Ukrainian officials were alarmed. “It was a total surprise,” Pavlo Klimkin, who until recently was Ukraine’s foreign minister, told The New York Times. U.S. lawmakers, who had approved funding for the shipments, in early September wrote to the White House to express their “deep concerns” over the disruption.
When it came to Ukraine and Russia, the Trump administration continued talking tough while sitting on nearly half a billion dollars in aid to Kiev. Vice President Mike Pence, in early September, condemned Russia’s “illegal occupation of Crimea and Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine.”
The delay began to make more sense when, last week, multiple news outlets reported that over the summer Trump leaned on Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to open an investigation into Hunter Biden’s legal business deals in Ukraine. Trump allegedly promised to release the military aid only after Zelensky agreed to investigate Biden.
Former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld, who is challenging Trump for the Republican Party’s 2020 nomination, called Trump’s actions “treason, pure and simple.” Apparently, caving to pressure from Congress, Trump last week agreed to release the Ukraine funds.
How bad was the damage? Regular shipments of U.S. military aid to Ukraine should resume shortly. And Congress is all but certain to approve hundreds of millions of dollars of additional assistance for 2020, likely boosting the total value of American military aid to Ukraine since 2014 to more than $2 billion.
No one expected the battle against Russian aggression in Ukraine to be easy. Even with the money again moving, a war that has dragged on for five years seems likely to keep dragging on. Still, Trump’s brief hijacking of U.S. military assistance to Ukraine could only prolong the conflict. Especially, if he tries it again.
