White House rebuffs Ukraine appeal for weapons

Photo: Saul Loeb, AFP/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The White House refused to include weapons in an aid package announced Thursday for embattled Ukraine despite an impassioned plea by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko for more military assistance.

The Obama administration is providing $46 million in non-lethal security assistance and $7 million for relief organizations providing humanitarian assistance to Ukrainians affected by the conflict between government forces and Russian-backed separatists in the eastern region.

The White House announcement came shortly after Poroshenko stood before a joint session of Congress and pleaded for more political support and military equipment beyond the non-lethal aid the United States has pledged.

Poroshenko said blankets and night-vision goggles from the USA are important, "but one cannot win a war with blankets!"

What the White House offered was a military aid package that will provide body armor, helmets, vehicles, night and thermal vision devices, advanced radios, patrol boats, counter-mortar radars, rations, tents and uniforms. U.S. military and civilian advisers will help Ukraine improve its defense capacity, the White House said.

The new aid brings the total U.S. assistance package for Ukraine to $291 million, plus a $1 billion loan guarantee. The Obama administration has refused to provide lethal aid for fear of escalating tensions.

In his address to Congress, where he was greeted with warm applause, Poroshenko said his country seeks continued U.S. diplomatic and economic support, including additional sanctions, to help Ukraine regain the Crimean Peninsula from Russia.

The United States and European Union have imposed several rounds of economic sanctions on Moscow in response to Russia's seizure of Crimea and intervention in the separatist rebellion along its border with eastern Ukraine.

Poroshenko said Russia set off a conflict with wide-ranging implications when it seized Crimea in violation of an agreement to respect Ukraine's territorial integrity in exchange for the former Soviet republic's agreement to relinquish its once-sizable nuclear arsenal.

"With just one move, the world has been thrown back in time — to a reality of territorial claims, zones of influence, criminal aggression and annexations," he said. "The postwar international system of checks and balances was effectively ruined."

This was the first address to Congress by Poroshenko, who was voted into office in May amid the separatist rebellion that Ukraine, NATO and the United States say was fomented and supported by Russia. Russia denies the allegations.

Poroshenko accepted a cease-fire Sept. 5 that was based in large part on a plan laid out by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Ukraine and NATO contend that Putin sent forces and weapons into eastern Ukraine last month as Ukrainian forces appeared poised to overtake separatists' last two bastions in the cities of Luhansk and Donetsk.

As those strongholds remained in the separatists' control, Poroshenko agreed to grant autonomy to the region in return for peace. Sporadic fighting, however, continues between the rebels and Ukrainian forces.

Poroshenko said he wants peace and is willing to do what it takes to achieve it. "I am ready to offer those who live in (separatist areas) more rights than any part of Ukraine has ever had in the history of the nation," he said. "I am ready to discuss anything, except one thing, Ukraine's dismemberment."

Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said after Poroshenko's speech that he supports Ukraine's request for defensive weapons, such as anti-tank systems, but the timing should depend on "what's happening on the ground and negotiation."

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said the United States should have given lethal aid to Ukraine "when the Russians had 40,000 troops on the border, before they ever came into eastern Ukraine."