Senators Urge Trump to Give Ukraine Lethal Weapons

A bipartisan group of US senators wrote to President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday, December 8, urging him to continue America’s strong support for Ukraine during Russia’s war against it.

The 27 legislators’ letter turned out to be a succinct primer on US-Ukraine relations ahead of the third anniversary of Russia’s aggression in Crimea and eastern Ukraine.

The letter listed the following reasons for the senators’ urgent appeal to Trump:

1. Russia’s enduring illegal annexation of Crimea and military aggression in eastern Ukraine;

2. The Kremlin’s daily ceasefire violations that make a mockery of the Minsk Agreement;

3. Russia’s escalation that demonstrates that this conflict in the heart of Europe is far from over;

4. Russia has yet to withdraw its heavy weapons and continues its sabotage and subversion efforts;

5. Moscow has not halted its disinformation war against Ukraine and the West;

6. Russia has not stopped its economic and political pressure aimed at undermining the Ukrainian government; and

7. According to the UN, approximately 10,000 people have been killed, more than 20,000 wounded, and more than 2 million internally displaced since the conflict began.

“In light of Russia’s continued aggression and repeated refusal to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereign right to choose its own destiny, we also renew our call for the United States to increase political, economic, and military support for Ukraine.  This includes defensive lethal assistance as part of a broader effort to help Ukrainians better defend themselves, deter future aggression, and implement key structural reforms,” they wrote.

The senators expressed their belief that Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea should never be accepted, and the US should not lift sanctions imposed on Russia for its actions in eastern Ukraine until key provisions of the Minsk Agreement are met.

“Accordingly, US leadership on maintaining such transatlantic sanctions should remain a priority,” they wrote.

Russia invaded the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in February 2014, about a week after the conclusion of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, and simultaneously with Viktor Yanukovych’s flight from Ukraine at the end of the historic Revolution of Dignity.

The lawmaker’s appeal to the President-elect is also timely because Trump has not expressed a word of support for Ukraine while favoring Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin. In July 2016, Trump said he “would be looking into” whether to officially recognize Crimea as part of Russia. The following month he said that Putin is “not going to go into Ukraine,” despite the fact that Russia already had invaded Ukraine.

Stating that Russia’s military land-grab in Ukraine is unprecedented in modern European history, the senators said these “actions in Crimea and other areas of eastern Ukraine dangerously upend well-established diplomatic, legal, and security norms that the United States and its NATO allies painstakingly built over decades – a historically bipartisan global security framework that has greatly served US security and economic interests.”

They drew a straight line between Russia’s war in Ukraine and US security by pointing out that it is in America’s “vital national security interest to uphold these norms and values, and prevent America’s commitment to its allies and ideals from being called into question.”

The legislators concluded their letter by expressing hope for the continuation of the US “tradition of bipartisan support for Ukraine in Congress, which has authorized meaningful assistance programs through the Ukraine Freedom Support Act, the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, and other pieces of legislation.”

The following senators signed the letter: Robert Portman, Richard J. Durbin, John McCain, Jeanne Shaheen, Marco Rubio, Sherrod Brown, Ron Johnson, Christopher S. Murphy, Cory Gardner, Richard Blumenthal, Pat Roberts, Jack Reed, Christopher A. Coons, John Barrasso, Benjamin L. Cardin, Lindsey Graham, Robert P. Casey Jr., John Boozman, Gary C. Peters, Jim Risch, Jeff Merkley, Johnny Isakson, Kirsten Gillibrand, James Inhofe, Amy Klobuchar, Sheldon Whitehouse and Robert Menendez.

Hopefully, members of the House of Representatives will soon compose similar entreaty to the President-elect.

The letter to Trump came a day after NATO urged the free to continue diplomatic pressure and sanctions against Russia until Moscow respects the truce that it signed.

After talks with NATO and Ukraine foreign ministers, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters Wednesday of a “massive increase in cease-fire violations” in the conflict-torn east Ukraine. He said hundreds of explosions are sometimes reported daily, including many caused by heavy weapons banned under the Minsk peace accords.

“The international community must keep pressuring Russia to respect its obligations, especially while the security situation in eastern Ukraine remains so serious,” Stoltenberg said.

The NATO official continued “I call on all parties to redouble their efforts to implement the Minsk Agreements in full. As a first step, we need to see an immediate and full ceasefire. In the meantime, the international community must keep pressuring Russia to respect its obligations. Especially while the security situation in eastern Ukraine remains so serious, it is important that economic sanctions be maintained.”

“Russia has a significant responsibility in bringing the conflict to an end,” Stoltenberg added.

NATO and free world support for Ukraine is welcome and necessary but it will remain lukewarm without the political and moral backing of the United States.

Ukraine Defends National Interests at the UN

Ukraine continues its undaunted diplomatic battle in the hallowed halls of the United Nations to defend its independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, safeguard the fate of Ukrainian citizens, protect human rights, and condemn numerous Russian gross violations of the UN Charter and international law and order. Ukraine is steadfastly supported in this mission by Ambassador Samantha Power, US permanent representative to the UN, and several other member-states.

Ambassador Volodymyr Yelchenko, permanent representative of Ukraine to the UN, on November 22 enlightened the world body about why Moscow is depriving the residents of enslaved Crimea of a valuable life-giving commodity, one that is protected by numerous UN resolutions as well as Goal 6 of the Sustainable Development Goals – water.

Yelchenko first of all reminded the UN member-states that Russia invaded the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in February 2014 and has occupied and enslaved it ever since, incidentally as well as two eastern oblasts of Ukraine.

“The territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea as of today remains under occupation of the Russian Federation and under international law it is the occupying power that bears full responsibility for the consequences of its illegal actions,” the Ukrainian diplomat noted.

He explained that the Russian delegation in an earlier statement had demonstrated the inability of the Russian occupation authorities “to address in any satisfactory manner the essential needs of the local population.” Instead of admitting its unlawful actions and attempting to correct the wrongs it committed, Yelchenko continued, “The Russian side opted to use the issue of water supply in Crimea as a propaganda tool.”

Today Moscow is using water as a weapon of control, while in 1932-33 the Russian Federation’s Soviet predecessors used food as a weapon of control that killed some 7-10 million Ukrainians.

Yelchenko challenged the sincerity of the Russian occupiers by saying if Moscow was genuinely concerned about the issue of water, it should cease diverting scarce water resources in Crimea to supply the needs of the growing military infrastructure and military personnel on the peninsula.

Ukraine and other global military observers have reported on numerous occasions Russia’s massive military buildup on Crimea, turning the once popular resort to a dangerous, armed warm water encampment with enough troops, sailors and weapons to strike targets in the Black Sea, the Med and even Atlantic.

Once Russia stops misappropriating water for military purposes, Yelchenko concluded, “The next logical step would be to start the process of de-occupation of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and city of Sevastopol, thus contributing in a positive way to addressing the issue of water availability in Crimea.”

A day earlier, the Ukrainian ambassador explained to the UN General Assembly that the so-called Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) is a bogus institution and Kyiv will not support any UN measure that would give the CIS credibility.

The CIS is an ill-conceived structure formed 25 years ago, when Ukraine declared its independence and the USSR was crumbling, in order to hasten Ukraine’s push for independence and sovereignty. However, in reality, it is merely another façade to promote the Russian empire.

Yelchenko presented Ukraine’s case why the UN cannot and should not cooperate with the CIS.

“To our disappointment this organization demonstrated its complete failure to take appropriate measures to respond to the Russian aggression in Ukraine. The CIS is still pretending that there is no Russian aggression, no illegal occupation of Crimea, no war crimes committed by the Russian Federation,” he said.

The Ukrainian ambassador pointed out that Ukraine declined to sign the decision of the Council of Heads of State of the CIS of December 24, 1993, regarding measures to ensure international recognition of the CIS, with regard to granting observer status for the CIS in the General Assembly. He said Ukraine acted on the basis of the Statement of December 20, 1991, of Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada concerning the conclusion of the Agreement on the CIS, which stated that Ukraine refused to grant the CIS the status of a subject of international law.

He said the CIS is not subject of international law but rather it’s an international, interregional formation which not only lacks definite status but actually includes a military and political alliance established on the basis of the Tashkent agreement on collective security of May 15, 1992, which binds only some members of the Commonwealth.

The CIS was entrusted with strengthening regional cooperation in such areas as trade and economic development while its principal sponsor, Russia, has undertaken targeted illegal and discriminative steps on trade with Ukraine, Yelchenko continued.

The CIS was also mandated to combat terrorism and manifestations of extremism but it has also failed in that respect, he said.

“We express our disappointment that although the Commonwealth positions itself as an active fighter against terrorism and extremism, it has displayed itself with the total absence of response to the actions of one of its most influential members — the Russian Federation — an aggressor and occupier country, which controls, finances and directs the actions of illegal armed groups in certain areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine, supplying them military equipment and weapons and constitutes a serious threat to international peace and security,” the Ukrainian official said.

Yelchenko said Ukraine’s abstention from putting to a vote draft resolution A/71/L.5 was based on the understanding that its adoption should not be interpreted as de jure recognition of the CIS as a regional arrangement, as defined in Chapter VIII of the United Nations Charter.

Ukraine’s position on the CIS was spot-on. There is no reason for Russia to have another fake, hollow institution perpetuating its lies and fabrications in the United Nations.

The 71st UN General Assembly and the GA President Peter Thomson should not ridicule themselves by bowing to Russian pressure and endorsing the CIS as a subject of international law.