Ukraine needs anti-tank weapons and counter-battery radars now, a former under secretary of defense told a Senate panel Tuesday.
“[Vladimir] Putin is going to continue to escalate,” Michele Flournoy, former under secretary of defense for policy, told the Senate Armed Services Committee. The Russian president is intent on increasing pressure on Ukraine until its government collapses, and will continue to do so unless the costs become too high, Flournoy said.
Flournoy was an early favorite to replace outgoing Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel but informed the president in November that she was withdrawing from consideration.
Both Flournoy, who served under the Obama administration, and Eric Edleman, former under secretary of defense for policy under former President George W. Bush, strongly advised the panel to arm Ukraine.
“If we do nothing, there will be a military solution in Ukraine — the one imposed by Vladimir Putin,” Edleman said.
Counter-battery radars, such as the AN/TPQ-36 Firefinder, locate the source of incoming fires to direct counterfires. Flournoy said an ability like counter-battery radar would raise the costs for Putin to continue any advances in Ukraine.
House Armed Services Committee leadership later in the day will announce bipartisan legislation to provide arms to Ukraine. U.S. support up to this point has been limited to non-lethal aid, such as radars and training.
Both former officials were in Berlin over the weekend for talks with NATO members on Ukraine, and both came back with a strong consensus that the country requires weapons to stop further Russian incursion.
“It is worth seeing what happens Wednesday in Minsk,” Flournoy said, referring to continuing peace talks among German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande, Ukraine president Petro Poroshenko and Putin in Belarus on Wednesday. “Barring that it is very import we help the Ukrainians defend themselves.”
