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"Obama sent blankets; Trump sent Javelins!" He did, with a big catch...
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/24/world/europe/ukraine-war-impeachment.html
<snip>
In 2018, the Trump administration authorized sales to Ukraine of a shoulder-fired anti-tank missile called the Javelin, reversing an Obama administration policy of supplying only non-lethal aid.
But there is a big catch. The Trump administration provided the missiles on the condition that they not be used in the war, Ukrainian officials and American diplomats have said, lest they provoke Russia to slip more powerful weaponry to the separatists.
“They are not to be on the front line,” Iryna Herashchenko, a former chief settlement negotiator, said of the missiles. Their precise deployment positions are kept secret.
So, Ukrainian soldiers at the front have improvised: They prop up the dummies of straw and extra uniforms that appear to hold the missiles, as a ruse, an army spokesman said.
Soldiers at Lieutenant Molchanets’s position said the fake missiles are conjured from logs and empty ammunition boxes, roughly mimicking the silhouette of a Javelin.
<snip>
<snip>
In 2018, the Trump administration authorized sales to Ukraine of a shoulder-fired anti-tank missile called the Javelin, reversing an Obama administration policy of supplying only non-lethal aid.
But there is a big catch. The Trump administration provided the missiles on the condition that they not be used in the war, Ukrainian officials and American diplomats have said, lest they provoke Russia to slip more powerful weaponry to the separatists.
“They are not to be on the front line,” Iryna Herashchenko, a former chief settlement negotiator, said of the missiles. Their precise deployment positions are kept secret.
So, Ukrainian soldiers at the front have improvised: They prop up the dummies of straw and extra uniforms that appear to hold the missiles, as a ruse, an army spokesman said.
Soldiers at Lieutenant Molchanets’s position said the fake missiles are conjured from logs and empty ammunition boxes, roughly mimicking the silhouette of a Javelin.
<snip>
And Obama sent "non-lethal" equipment, things like trucks, body armor, medical supplies, infrared night scopes (certainly more than blankets!).
6 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
There were peace talks held and ceasefires signed at least in 2014 and 2015, possibly more. The Minsk agreements (link below) prohibited some types of weapons. Gets really complicated, way too complicated for stupid Republicans who want to reduce it all to a sound bite: "we're the good guys and they're the bad guys!" 
Minsk Protocol
