Sen. Nelson says US should arm Ukraine against rebels
WASHINGTON – In a break with the White House, Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida says the U.S. should provide military equipment to Ukraine as it battles Russian-backed rebels along its eastern border.
President Barack Obama has approved sending food, medicine and other humanitarian supplies to Kyiv but has resisted calls to provide lethal assistance.
Nelson told reporters Monday that’s not good enough. He’s worried Moscow, which already has annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and has been accused by the West of arming the rebels, might invade at some point.
“I support giving arms to the government of Ukraine in order to help them protect themselves from the big Russian bear,” said the senator from Orlando, who first mentioned his support for arming the rebels about a week ago.
Nelson said such help could come in the form of trucks, armored personnel carriers, ammunition, or “whatever the Ukrainian government is running short of.” He said he’s not worried weapons and equipment could fall into enemy hands because he expects the conflict will end soon, given recent advances by Ukrainian forces.
Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also backs arming the Ukrainians.
A senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Nelson made his comments on the eve of a two-week, fact-finding trip to Ukraine, Lithuania and Turkey. Nelson plans to meet with local government leaders, NATO representatives and U.S. military officials on a host of issues inflaming global tensions.
He will travel with a military escort but no other committee members. He said he’s making the trip at the behest of NATO’s top military commander, U.S. Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, who urged members of the Senate panel earlier this year to visit Ukraine for a better grasp of the situation.
Nelson also will meet with officials in Lithuania, which he says is “scared to death” about similar Russian aggression, and Turkey, where nearby Kurds in northern Iraq are battling well-armed Sunni militants with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS.
Nelson also supports arming Kurdish rebels, going beyond the Obama administration’s offer of humanitarian assistance and targeted air strikes against ISIS.
The Florida senator says his views don’t mean he’s joining others criticizing the president’s foreign policy. Those critics include former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who told The Atlantic the U.S. should have intervened earlier in Syria on behalf of moderate rebels.
Nelson said he supports the president’s decision not to send troops to quell the crises in Syria or Iraq. He backs the president’s use of targeted air strikes in northern Iraq. And he’s behind Obama’s efforts to push out Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who is seen as a divisive figure.
On Monday, Iraq’s president nominated Haider al-Abadi to replace Maliki as prime minister, a move Obama called “a promising step forward.”