U.S. officials have approved the arms sale at the center of President Trump’s controversial request for Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden.
“This proposed sale will contribute to the foreign policy and national security of the United States by improving the security of Ukraine,” the Pentagon’s Defense Cooperation Agency announced Thursday.
The approved $39.2 million arms sale will secure 150 Javelin anti-tank missile systems for Ukraine, which has been embroiled in conflict since 2014, when unmarked Russian forces annexed Crimea. It’s the same weapons system that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky requested in his July 25 conversation with Trump, who responded by asking for Ukrainian officials to speak with his personal attorney about a potential scandal involving Biden and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
“The Javelin system will help Ukraine build its long-term defense capacity to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity in order to meet its national defense requirements,” the U.S. government bulletin said.
That announcement builds on previous weapons deals dating back to 2017, when Trump began to authorize arms sales that Barack Obama’s administration had prevented, to the delight of Ukrainian officials.
“I would also like to thank you for your great support in the area of defense,” Zelensky told Trump in their July 25 call, according to a rough transcript released by the White House. “We are ready to continue to cooperate for the next steps, specifically we are almost ready to buy more Javelins from the United States for defense purposes.”
Trump replied: “I would like you to do us a favor though, because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it.”
The conversation then turned to his desire for Ukrainian officials to cooperate with his lawyer, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who reportedly is trying to find evidence that Clinton’s team coordinated with Ukraine to embarrass the Trump campaign in the 2016 elections. Giuliani also wants the Ukrainian government to help him find evidence implicating Biden, a perceived front-runner for the 2020 Democratic nomination, in a separate Ukrainian corruption scandal.
“Whatever you can do, it’s very important that you do it if that’s possible,” Trump told Zelensky.
The announcement was released hours after a top American general endorsed the sale, explaining the timing by reference to the training of Ukrainian troops.
“We’re to a point — based off of the number of military training teams that we’ve been able to insert in the Ukraine — to allow us to have comfort that with an additional Javelin comes enough soldiers with the ability to embrace that capability, absorb it, and productively use it,” Air Force General Tod Wolters, the commander of U.S. European Command, told reporters at the Pentagon on Thursday.
The sale will fortify Republican defenses of Trump’s policies toward Ukraine and his conversation with Zelensky amid an intensifying impeachment effort.
“The administration and Hill Republicans remain committed to ensuring Ukraine’s security,” a congressional Republican aide told the Washington Examiner, on condition of anonymity. “We know now that it could not have been a quid pro quo because Ukraine didn’t know that anything was being held up. And so, a lot of people up here I think rightly see this as an extension of the push to give Ukraine aid, which has been ongoing.”
