(War on the Rocks) (Co-authored by Cynthia Buckley and Ralph Clem) What’s the best way for the United States to support Ukraine? The country is the principal arena in the high-stakes geopolitical standoff between the United States (with its NATO allies) and Russia. While a horrific and seemingly intractable war with Moscow ongoing in eastern Ukraine since 2014 has overwhelmed the government, the fledgling administration of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also now finds itself enmeshed in American domestic politics. Remarkably, the impeachment case against President Donald Trump hinges on the specifics and timing of U.S. security assistance to Ukraine.
Indeed, military aid presently makes up the lion’s share of American funding for Ukraine. Data for Fiscal Year 2017 — the last year for which a detailed breakdown is available — summarizing all U.S. aid to Ukraine shows that roughly half of the $511 million total went for military purposes, either through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative or other allotments. […]
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