As Ukraine makes significant gains in its fight against Vladimir Putin’s war of aggression, U.S. Senators Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Joe Manchin (D-W.V.), members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, are leading 14 of their colleagues in urging Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to provide Ukrainian forces with MQ-1C Gray Eagle drones.
The Pentagon has considered transferring armed Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) to Ukraine for months, without a final decision, prompting the senators’ letter to Secretary Austin.
In the letter, the senators write: “The American people and their representatives in Congress have strongly supported arming Ukraine to defend its homeland against Russian tyranny. Toward this end, Congress provided the Pentagon with appropriations and drawdown authority to provide Ukraine the necessary firepower. Ukrainian successes on the battlefield are encouraging, but Vladimir Putin’s intent to conquer all of Ukraine remains unchanged. The timely provision of effective lethal aid to stabilize Ukrainian defenses and enable long-term resistance against future Russian aggression remains urgent.”
The senators continue: “This particular UAS will increase Ukraine’s unmanned capabilities in the near-term and demands careful reconsideration. This system’s operational attributes—availability, lethality, survivability, and exportability—complement existing weapon systems used by the Ukrainians and will increase the lethality of the Ukrainian military….The long-term upside of providing Ukraine with the MQ-1C is significant and has the potential to drive the strategic course of the war in Ukraine’s favor.”
Ernst and Manchin are joined by their colleagues Senators Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Susan Collins, (R-Maine), Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.V.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), John Hoeven (R-N.D.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.).
Read the full letter here.
What a crock! Ukraine is losing, not winning and it’s only going to get worse. Every one of these politicians must be making big bucks from the money laundering going on via Ukraine. This all could have been prevented if NATO had kept its promise to Russia not to move farther east, and if the Minsk Agreement had been enforced. Instead the thugs in Ukraine repeatedly attacked the Russian speaking people in east Ukraine, and Zelensky expressed the desire to join NATO and have nukes. It would be like Russian or China putting nukes along the Rio Grande in Mexico.
The US is supporting and arming nazi thugs. They have executed Russian POWs, and some Ukrainian soldiers, including ones on Zelensky’s security detail, wear the insignia of nazism, including the arm patch of the Dirlewanger Brigade, a notorious German brigade comprised of criminals. They were responsible for some of the worst wartime atrocities including rape and mass murder. Look it up on Wikipedia.
Civilians in Kherson were tied to lamp posts (reported in the Daily Mail, UK) as suspected Russian collaborators, no proof or trial needed. Who knows what happened to those people after the cameras were turned off.
Ukraine’s leader, rumored to be a cocaine addict, has done his best to drag the US and NATO into WWIII with 2 attempts at false flags. Ukraine is also shelling the nuclear power plant in an attempt to cause a disaster.
Ukrainian soldiers are being slaughtered on the battlefield. Apparently the west intends to continue this war to the last Ukrainian.
Meanwhile the US is spending billions it doesn’t have (most of which seems to be coming back to US politicians, mainly Democrats), and our own border is wide open to invasion. This is more than insanity; it is evil, and every US politician who promotes this conflict and sends more weapons (depleting our own supply) and money to Ukraine, has blood on his or her hands.