KYIV, Ukraine — Hunter Biden doesn’t matter much to Ukrainians, but the controversy that surrounds him will make it difficult for President Joe Biden to reduce the amount of lethal military equipment former President Donald Trump sent to the country, defense experts here tell the Washington Examiner.
During Joe Biden’s time as vice president under Barack Obama, he took a keen interest in Ukraine, making several visits, pursuing anti-corruption policies, and pushing for military assistance in the wake of Russia’s 2014 invasion and seizure of the Crimean peninsula. The interest may have contributed to his son, Hunter Biden’s, lucrative position on the board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma for a five-year term that ended in 2019. Obama was reluctant to provide lethal assistance to Ukraine, but Trump sold the country Javelin anti-tank missiles and then boasted of the deterrent effect it had on Russia.
With Joe Biden reluctant to make any announcements about Ukraine in the days leading up to a summit with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, the Hunter Biden controversy may ensure security assistance continues to flow, say security analysts in Kyiv.
“I was in several meetings with Biden, and I’ve seen that he was very oriented to support Ukraine,” Alexander Danyliuk, former national security council adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said of Biden’s visits to Ukraine as vice president.
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“As a vice president, he was very active and involved in Ukraine, and that’s like maybe 90% of how he is perceived in Ukraine,” he added. “He was in the parliament speaking, addressing the parliament. It was a very powerful speech at that time, and it’s remembered by people.”
Danyliuk said he recalls that others on the Obama team objected to helping his country, especially by sending it combat weapons.
Ultimately, Obama opted against giving lethal aid to Ukraine. Trump reversed that policy by selling the Javelin tank-killing missiles, a crucial deterrent should Russian armored units cross the eastern border of Ukraine, where Vladimir Putin incited a proxy war.
That war continues seven years later, and Russian tanks remain just beyond the front-line combat zone, according to a Ukrainian military intelligence officer who spoke to the Washington Examiner near the front-line village of Shyrokyne.
Ukraine, too, was seen moving tanks and armored personnel carriers to eastern Ukraine, though defense officials said the equipment would not go to the front line, in accordance with the Minsk Protocol, signed in 2014.
‘Trump times were difficult’
Biden spoke by telephone to Zelensky on Tuesday, a call Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said last week was urgently needed before the U.S. leader’s first summit with Putin on June 16 in Geneva, Switzerland.
A White House readout of the call said Biden “affirmed the United States’ unwavering commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of ongoing Russian aggression in Donbas [eastern Ukraine] and Crimea.”
Biden also invited Zelensky to the White House later this summer.
“Trump times were difficult for Ukraine,” Kuleba said.
“On the other hand, we did receive Javelins,” he added. “There was some really bad things, and we became stars of domestic American politics against our will, and we did nothing to interfere or to win that role. But, at the same time, the military supplies were good. Things were working.”
Danyliuk said a backtrack by Biden of security assistance to that of the Obama days could reignite the Hunter Biden controversy.
“I believe President Biden believes in the importance of increasing military assistance to Ukraine and will push for it,” he assessed. “I hope the controversy will not be an obstacle, vice versa, by backing increase of assistance President Biden will demonstrate that his position is genuine and not dependent on internal political currents.”
Colorado GOP Rep. Doug Lamborn, an Armed Services Committee member, recently said in an interview it’s too early to tell if Biden will provide the same level of robust security assistance to Ukraine as Trump did.
“Under Obama, it was a travesty,” he recalled. “When the president of Ukraine spoke to a joint session of Congress, he said we don’t need blankets and meals.”
With all eyes on the Putin-Biden summit, Ukraine is hoping they do not become a pawn in a negotiation with the Russian leader.
In April, after Russia massed 100,000 troops on the border with Ukraine, international outcry from the U.S., NATO, and others led Putin to declare a withdrawal.
“There was a kind of a feeling here that Biden gave up something to Putin in exchange for something. We don’t know what,” Danyliuk said, noting that the expected arrival of American ships to the Black Sea was reportedly canceled with no explanation. America’s rotational presence in the sea acts as a deterrent to aggression by Russia’s growing Black Sea fleet.
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Still, Ukrainians are hopeful Biden will stand by his promises.
“I have no reasons to be suspicious about the willingness of the Biden administration to be helpful, especially given that President Biden knows the beginning of this conflict very well,” said Kuleba. “He can now avoid the mistakes that the Obama administration did in the early years of this conflict.”
