Did President Trump pressure newly elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into investigating Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden’s younger son for alleged business malfeasance? And did Trump delay a $250 million security assistance package to Kiev to force the hand of Ukrainian leadership to cooperate?
Democrats in Washington smell blood and want answers. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is demanding a congressional inquiry on the matter. If the allegations are true, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi may no longer be able to block a formal impeachment investigation into the president.
But regardless of whether there is some connection between the U.S. aid to Ukraine and Trump’s ask on Biden, there are actually good reasons to review assistance to Kiev—none of which have anything to do with Trump.
Ukraine may be an aspiring democracy looking to become an active member of the Western community. But geopolitically, Ukraine’s trajectory is far more important to Moscow than it is to Washington or Brussels. For the Russians, a Western-aligned Ukrainian government is an unfathomable development to be prevented, even if the cost of doing so is high.
This is why Vladimir Putin was so freaked out when the Maidan protesters drove former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych into Russian exile. A hostile neighbor, let alone one that was under Russia’s considerable influence for so long, would be a geopolitical setback of immense proportions and a political train wreck for Putin personally. Of course, the disastrous consequences which would have resulted from a perennially anti-Russia Ukraine is why Moscow was willing to take such a significant risk in forestalling it.
One can argue whether Moscow’s strategy succeeded. One can make the case that Russia’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and its military support to separatists in Eastern Ukraine have only emboldened pro-western political forces in Ukrainian politics. But it’s very hard to make the case that what happens in Ukraine will make or break U.S. policy in Eurasia like it would the Kremlin’s.
Lawmakers in Washington like to think of themselves as enablers of young democracies abroad. If the Russians are poked in the eye during the process, then it’s a bonus. The $250 million in U.S. aid to Kiev was sold by both sides of the aisle as a pro-democracy litmus test and an example of Congress’ good intentions. In the conventional, unwritten rules of Washington, to ask questions about the aid meant you are more interested in bowing to Putin than you were in defending the sanctity of the rules-based international order.
Yet the real world doesn’t conform to these black-and-white, us-vs.-them terms. Doing the moral or popular thing like writing checks for Kiev can have strategic consequences, like Russia providing even more military equipment to the separatists. Moscow has responded to Washington’s assistance in the past, it would be illogical to assume Moscow wouldn’t do so again.
Trump may have committed a grievous error in judgment by using the defense assistance as leverage to browbeat Zelensky into opening a corruption inquiry into the Bidens. But impropriety or no impropriety, Washington’s review of military help to Ukraine was justified. No country has a right to U.S. foreign aid, even if it seems like many on Capitol Hill view it as an entitlement.
Daniel DePetris (@DanDePetris) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. His opinions are his own.
