DOD OFFICIALS EXPLAIN TO CONGRESS THE EFFECTS OF SANCTIONS ON RUSSIA

FROM:  U.S. DEFENSE DEPARTMENT
Sanctions Having a Mixed Effect on Russia, Officials Say
By Nick Simeone
DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON, Feb. 25, 2015 – U.S. and European sanctions imposed on Russia for its support of Ukrainian separatists and the annexation of Crimea are having a significant impact on Russia’s economy but have not curtailed Moscow’s continued intervention in the region, two senior Defense Department officials told Congress today.

“We are hearing, for example, more dissatisfaction of the oligarchs, who to date have been very supportive of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin,” Christine E. Wormuth, undersecretary of defense for policy, told the House Armed Services Committee during a hearing on security threats to Europe that focused largely on Russia’s threat to Ukraine and Eastern Europe.

Regarding the sanctions, the Russian oligarchs “are concerned about the impact it is having on their businesses, on their own financial holdings, but it has not changed so far what Russia has been doing on the ground, and that is the great concern,” Wormuth said during her testimony.

She added, “That is where there is the need again to look at the overall package of cost-imposing strategies toward Russia and also support to Ukraine to see if we can change the calculus.”

Assistance for Ukraine

In addition to ongoing military exercises and a stepped-up NATO presence in Eastern Europe, the Obama administration has committed $118 million in nonlethal aid and training to the Ukrainian government in Kiev and a similar amount for fiscal year 2015.

Ukraine’s government, which has lost control of significant portions of the eastern part of the country to Russian-backed rebels since fighting began a year ago, has asked allies -- including the United States -- for lethal aid.
“There is various discussion of providing defensive lethal assistance in an effort to again raise costs on Russia, not from the perspective at all of being able to fundamentally alter the military balance … but to try to give Ukraine more ability to defend itself against the separatist aggression,” Wormuth said in answer to legislators’ questions. In fact, Wormuth and Air Force Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, Supreme Allied Commander Europe and commander of U.S. European Command, both told lawmakers they did not know how Putin would respond if the West began supplying lethal aid to the government in Kiev. However, “what we’re doing now is not changing the results on the ground,” Breedlove said.

More Economic Pressure

Wormuth said pressure should continue on all fronts and that stepped-up economic and financial isolation of Russia could prove more effective than providing lethal aid to the Ukrainian government, a move that she said could lead Russia to “double down” on its support for Ukrainian separatists and thereby escalate the conflict.

Ultimately, Breedlove said, he does not think the Ukrainian military is capable of stopping further Russian advances and that the best resolution to the year-old conflict remains a diplomatic one. Even so, neither he nor Wormuth expressed confidence that a cease-fire agreement reached earlier this month in Belarus -- the second such agreement in five months -- would hold.

“Mr. Putin has not accomplished his objectives yet in Ukraine, so next is probably more action,” Breedlove said. He suggested Moscow knows what lines are not worth crossing, testifying that while “pressure is being brought [by Russia] on nations to keep them from leaning West,” Breedlove felt the Russian president is well aware of NATO’s obligation to come to the defense of any member threatened with attack.

“I do believe that Mr. Putin understands Article 5, but I do not believe that that would preclude Mr. Putin from taking some actions in reaching out to the disparate Russian-speaking populations that are in some [of] our easternmost nations in NATO,” Breedlove said, referring primarily to the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

Turning to another security concern, both defense officials described instability in the Middle East, in particular the control that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has over territory just to the south of Europe.

“The flow of returning foreign terrorist fighters to Europe and the United States in both the near- and mid-term poses a significant risk, including to our forward-based forces in Europe,” Breedlove said, and “is likely to grow more complex for the next decade or longer.”

FACT SHEET ON U.S. ASSISTANCE TO UKRAINE

FROM:  THE WHITE HOUSE 

FACT SHEET: U.S. Security Assistance to Ukraine

The United States is working to bolster Ukraine’s ability to secure its borders and preserve its territorial integrity and sovereignty in the face of Russian occupation of Crimea and a concerted effort by Russian-backed separatists to destabilize eastern Ukraine.  President Obama has approved more than $23 million in additional defensive security assistance since early March.

This assistance includes:

A new tranche of $5 million for the provision of body armor, night vision goggles, and additional communications equipment.  This is in addition to the approximately 300,000 Meals Ready to Eat (delivered in March), as well as assistance for the provision of materiel using Foreign Military Financing to support Ukraine’s armed forces with medical supplies, service member equipment (e.g., helmets, sleeping mats, water purification units), explosive ordnance disposal equipment, and handheld radios.

The United States also has allocated Cooperative Threat Reduction funding to support Ukraine’s State Border Guard Service with supplies (e.g., clothing, shelters, small power generators and hand fuel pumps, engineering equipment, communications equipment, vehicles, and non-lethal individual tactical gear).
To date, Embassy Kyiv has purchased and delivered 20-person shelters, sleeping bags, fuel filter adapters, barbed wire, patrol flashlights, perimeter alarm systems, fuel pumps, concertina wire, vehicle batteries, spare tires, binoculars, excavators, trucks, generators, food storage freezers, field stoves, and communications gear to the Ukrainian State Border Guard Service, for use in monitoring and securing their borders.

Senior Leader Engagement

On April 1, senior U.S. defense officials met with their Ukrainian counterparts in Kyiv for bilateral defense consultations, during which they held substantive discussions on regional security, defense cooperation, and areas for growth in the U.S.-Ukraine defense relationship.

Senior defense officials met with Ukrainian counterparts in Kyiv in early June to discuss ongoing U.S.-Ukraine defense cooperation and U.S. support to Ukraine’s defense reform efforts.

In early June, U.S. European Command will hold a general/flag officer steering group meeting with Ukrainian counterparts in Kyiv to set the strategic direction for future military-to-military cooperation.