US Sells 210 Javelin Anti-Tank Missiles And Launchers To Ukraine

• US Sells 210 Javelin Anti-Tank Missiles And Launchers To Ukraine
  by Tyler Durden, https://www.zerohedge.com/
  Well, it’s finally official – after years of preparation by the Obama administration to provide lethal offensive weapons to Ukraine over the vocal objections of the Kremlin, today the Trump administration announced it would sell Ukraine 210 Javelin anti-aircraft missiles and 37 launchers for $47 million. The sale, which was first reported last December, marks a significant increase in U.S. military support for Ukraine and another major deterioration US-Russian relations, and is the first lethal weapons sale of its kind since the breakout of a Russian-backed proxy civil war against the central government in Ukraine’s eastern provinces.
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  As discussed previously, President Trump approved the plan in the days just before Christmas 2017, and began informal notifications with Congress about it. With Thursday’s formal notification, Congress now has 30 days to sink the deal or it will go through, which is expected.
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  Trump’s approval of the arms deal was a major shift from the Republican party platform, which was amended when Trump was the party’s nominee for president, from supporting “lethal defensive arms” to Ukraine to the more vague “appropriate assistance” — language that ran counter to traditional Republican foreign policy.
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  Needless to say, Trump himself promised a reset with Russia, but since taking office, relations with Moscow have not improved.
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  So is this a deep state victory? The Washington Post previously described that “the decision over whether to allow lethal arms sales to Ukraine had been sitting on Trump’s desk for months” even after The National Security Council presented the president with various options for moving forward “months ago”. But concerning the impetus behind internal White House deliberations to move on the issue, the Washington Post reported:
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  But after years of covert American involvement in the Ukrainian proxy and civil war which has raged since 2014 – and which a leaked recording confirmed was precipitated by the US State Department – it appears that neocon hawks like McCain, Cotton, and Corker are finally getting their way.
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  Perhaps more scary in terms of escalating an unnecessary war which has already taken more than 10,000 lives since 2014, the Kiev government and some in Washington are already pushing for putting anti-aircraft weapons in the hands of Ukrainian forces.
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  “What we are awaiting and have called for is the provision of lethal defense weapons that are more advanced – a larger package that is under consideration right now, including anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles,” a Ukrainian official told ABC News. “We are expecting this decision and would welcome it.”
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  And as multiple reports have noted in recent weeks, fighting in eastern Ukraine is heating up after a period of relative stalemate and calm, and after general Western media silence on the war. Likely with the announcement of US supplied anti-tank missiles and the additional possibility of US anti-aircraft weapons being openly shipped into the conflict, it will most certainly return to the international and media spotlight.
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