Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived in Washington for his first known trip out of his country since Russia invaded in February and met with President Biden to request aid and weapons for war-torn Ukraine. In a bi-partisan move, the United States granted Ukraine more aid, in addition to a Patriot Missle Battery (or batteries). What is a Patriot Missile Battery, you may ask? It is a mobile surface-to-air missile and antiballistic missile system that can shoot down incoming missiles before they hit their intended targets. Patriot batteries can also shoot down aircraft. Mounted on trucks, to be moved around at will, each system is capable of holding four missile interceptors. This will help block the constant barrage of incoming Russian Missles that have killed countless Ukrainian citizens, including women and children.
The aid package has the alt-right crowd up in arms. But do they know that 45 gave Ukraine weapons and aid to defend against Russia prior to the Biden administration? They seem to either not know, or remain ultimately silent on this point. In one instance, former President Donald Trump’s administration released $250 million in military aid for Ukraine for use by Ukraine in its struggle with pro-Russian separatists backed by Moscow. Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimea region in March 2014. This move came after heavy criticism of Trump’s effort “to coerce” the Kiev government into launching an investigation of President Joe Biden and his family prior to the election. Trump ordered the nearly $400 million in U.S. aid to Ukraine to be frozen ahead of his July 25 call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. In fact, prior to the Biden administration and since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, when Barack Obama was President, the United States has supplied Kiev with $1.5 billion in security assistance, plus an average of $320 million a year in non-military aid.
Trump was impeached in 2019, relating to his efforts to dangle military aid when persuading Zelensky to launch politically motivated investigations against the Biden family ahead of the 2020 election. In a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 25, 2019, Trump acknowledged that he discussed investigating the family of his political rival, explicitly mentioning the sale of Javelins, Insider’s John Haltiwanger previously reported. Zelensky denied that he was pressured, but looked forced to say so in the interview posted below.
BUT WHAT WEAPONS AND AID DID TRUMP GIVE UKRAINE?
Trump reluctantly agreed to provide Ukraine with $47 million worth of lethal weapons in December 2017, which included 210 Javelin anti-tank missiles and 37 launchers. He initially resisted the sale, according to Foreign Policy, only agreeing to complete the sale in March 2018 once aides had persuaded him it would be good for the American economy.
