Defense Secretary Nominee Ashton Carter Signals Support For Arming Ukrainians
Source: Associated Press
February 4, 2015, 12:50 PM
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama's pick to run the Pentagon said Wednesday he's inclined to back increased U.S. assistance to Ukraine, including lethal arms, to fight anti-government rebels backed by neighboring Russia.
The White House is reconsidering its opposition to giving Ukraine defensive weapons and other lethal aid to help its struggling military repel the insurgents backed by Moscow. That would be a possible escalation that has been strongly supported by many members of Obama's national security team, but it also would risk turning Ukraine into a proxy war with Russia.
Carter also said that Russia's military moves in Ukraine are "a clear violation" of a 1994 commitment that Russia made to respect the sovereignty of the newly independent Ukraine as part of Ukraine's agreement to give up the nuclear weapons it inherited from the former Soviet Union.
The so-called Budapest Agreement "provided for Russia to respect the territorial integrity of Ukraine, which it's obviously not done," Carter told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee at his confirmation hearing. "And that is part of the climate and context in which the Ukrainians agreed to give up nuclear weapons in the first place."
Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/defense-secretary-nominee-ashton-carter-signals-support-for-arming-ukrainians/
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