Russia Will Retaliate After U.S. Supplies Lethal Weapons To Ukraine (Source breakingdefense.com)

The Trump administration agreed to send lethal defensive weapons to Ukraine. The order, packaged by the State Department as an affirmation of Ukraine’s right to defend itself against Russian-backed aggression, was greeted on Capitol Hill as a logical step in confronting what many lawmakers view as Vladimir Putin’s expansionist foreign policy. Proponents of this recommendation argue that the bloodier Russia’s nose becomes and the higher the death toll for Russian soldiers on the battlefield, the more pressure Putin will be under to cut ties with the outgunned and outmanned separatists. The prevailing logic, however, is based on a hopeful theory of how they hope Putin will respond. Moscow’s conduct over the three-and-a-half years of combat in Eastern Ukraine, however, should lead to the exact opposite conclusion — when push comes to shove, the Russians have proven to be willing to withstand the financial, political, and military pain associated with preventing the total military defeat of anti-Kiev forces.

Russian officials have, predictably, denounced President Trump’s authorization of lethal equipment to the Ukrainians — including the likely delivery of Javelin anti-tank weapons, which could pulverize Russian armor— as an aggressive act meant to deliberately sabotage the Minsk peace process. While there is a possibility that Ukrainian forces could use U.S.-supplied heavy weapons in an offensive capacity as the Russians suggest, it is more likely that this assistance will be used by Moscow as an excuse to redouble its own support to Ukrainian proxies in Donetsk and Luhansk.