Media: Ukraine requires the United States to return $ 30 million for weapons

Before the impeachment procedure, which ended on Wednesday with the acquittal of Donald Trump, the United States allocated $ 391 million for military assistance to Ukraine, which the president soon ordered to detain, writes BuzzFeed News.

Фото: Depositphotos

As a result, in September last year, this money was sent to Ukraine, but this case with a delay in funds allocated for military assistance for Ukraine was not an isolated one. As it became known, several direct commercial transactions for the sale of weapons and ammunition to Ukraine were suspended for unknown reasons and remain suspended several months later. Now, after a long wait and payment of advance payments on these transactions in the amount of tens of millions of dollars, Kiev wants to return its money.

Three Ukrainian officials and a former senior US official who are directly aware of the sales said on condition of anonymity that the Trump administration is currently refusing to approve at least six commercial orders for arms and ammunition from US companies to Ukraine for a total of about $ 30 million shaking the already fragile relations between the two countries. All four officials said five of the expected deals from US companies were postponed for about a year, and one was suspended for more than a year. Officials said they could not get any answers from the Trump administration about why the deals, which usually take about two months to confirm and which should be licensed by the Department of State, have not received confirmation.

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“Perhaps it would be wise for Ukrainians to look for other sources for the purchase of weapons and ammunition?” - this is the question, according to an American official, he asked senior officials of the White House. He was told that arms sales were still “being evaluated”, despite the fact that the Ukrainians had already paid for them.

The U.S. Embassy in Kiev declined to comment on this issue, and the White House and State Department did not respond to BuzzFeed's comments. Ukroboronprom, the Ukrainian state arms conglomerate and official purchaser of all weapons and ammunition, also declined to comment.

Two Ukrainian officials who spoke with BuzzFeed News believe that delays may be related to China’s attempt to buy a strategic Ukrainian aerospace company - the US tried to block the deal. This increases the likelihood that Kiev will be drawn into a game of forces between Beijing and Washington.

The delay in the sale of ammunition to Ukraine in the amount of $ 10 million was first reported by Yahoo News in September, when the Democrats' request for impeachment gained momentum.

Ukrainian and American officials agreed to speak with BuzzFeed News, because they believe that the purchase of weapons is vital to the national security of Ukraine in a conflict with Russia in the east of the country. This deal would also strengthen the position of President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky, because he is seeking lasting peace with Russian President Vladimir Putin. But at the same time, the officials themselves wished to remain incognito, since they were not authorized to issue such information to the media.

Direct commercial sales of weapons in the United States are mediated by private companies and foreign buyers, but must be licensed by the Department of State. In the past, Ukraine has several times bought weapons from American companies. According to one of the Ukrainian officials who are directly involved in such transactions, it usually takes one to two months to approve sales of this kind.

“This has never been an absolutely smooth process, but now it takes a few extra months,” the Ukrainian official said. “This is a slowdown trend.”

According to two Ukrainian officials, the purchase of ammunition, the export license for which was submitted to the State Department in November 2018, is the largest and most important of the six purchases. Ukraine lost one of its munitions factories when Russian-backed forces seized control of a large territory in the eastern part of the Luhansk region. Since then, the explosions that the government attributes to Russian sabotage have destroyed several ammunition depots.

According to one Ukrainian official, other arms purchases that were paid between January and March 2019 include the armaments needed by Ukrainian forces to wage a trench warfare. Two Ukrainian officials and a U.S. official said the rest of the arms deals included machine guns, sniper rifles and pistols, as well as night vision devices and other equipment used daily by soldiers and security forces in the country.

The war in eastern Ukraine since its inception in 2014 destroyed entire cities and infrastructure. In addition, about 14 people died and nearly 000 million more left these regions. The ceasefire agreement in February 2 stopped fierce tank battles and the use of multiple rocket launchers, but soldiers on the front line continue to conduct trench warfare, which includes the use of mortar systems and snipers. On average, two or three Ukrainian soldiers die every week.

Since the start of the war, the United States has provided Ukraine with approximately $ 1,6 billion in security assistance, including Javelin anti-tank missiles, approved by the Trump administration. Trump himself touted this by speaking in Davos last month. Then he said that President Barack Obama gave Ukraine "pillows, sheets and the like, and I gave them weapons against tanks."

Three Ukrainian officials said they asked questions about the frozen deals to the US embassy in Kiev, the US State Department, and senior US officials visiting the country, but were unable to get a direct answer as to why arms were being delayed. Two of the Ukrainians said that since the impeachment process began, their requests were ignored by US officials. A third Ukrainian official said that he received answers only in the spirit of “ask us later”, when he asked later, they still answered the same way.

Three Ukrainian officials could not say whether the delays in weapons and ammunition were directly related to Trump’s demand that Zelensky initiate an investigation into former US Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, as well as another rebutted theory that Ukraine intervened in the 2016 elections on the side of Hillary Clinton. But since sales were frozen even before July 25, the day of Trump’s infamous telephone conversation with Zelensky, there are probably other reasons.

One of the Ukrainians said that, in his opinion, delays could be related to corruption caused by the military procurement scandal, which involved the allies of former President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko at the beginning of last year, and similar scandals of the past in the country's defense sector.

Another Ukrainian official said the United States wants the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine to decide to ban the sale of Ukrainian Motor Sich to a Chinese strategic aerospace company.

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In 2017, the Chinese company Beijing Skyrizon Aviation tried to buy a controlling stake in Motor Sich, one of the world's leading manufacturers of helicopter and aircraft engines, to help upgrade its armed forces. The proposal came when Motor Sich struggled to survive after losing the largest market - then Kiev banned military exports to Russia after it annexed Crimea and fired up a war in the east. But in 2018, the Security Service of Ukraine raided the Motor Sich plant for reasons of national security, and a Ukrainian court froze the deal. She remains in limbo, but the United States would like the deal to be completely canceled, said a Ukrainian official who regularly meets with US officials in Kiev and Washington.

A third Ukrainian official and an American official said the delays were most likely due to bureaucratic reasons, although they could not say exactly what was happening at the moment.

“It will be difficult for them to explain why sales were delayed,” an American official said about his government.

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