U.S. to boost military aid to Ukraine

‘U.S. has doubled its military assistance to Ukraine over the past three months and is going to expand it further’

The Ukrainian defence chief has vowed to press on with Kiev’s “anti-terrorist operation” till the Russia-speaking east is “cleared of all separatists,” as the United States promised to boost military aid to Ukraine.

“We will work until the region begins live and function normally and people will get peace,” Ukraine’s acting Defence Minister General Mikhail Koval told a briefing in Kiev on Friday. The General claimed that parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions had already been ‘freed.’

The U.S. embassy in Kiev has announced a visit by Assistant Secretary of Defence Derek Chollet to Ukraine on June 2 as Washington plans to boost military aid to Ukraine.

In an interview to Ukraine’s Zerkalo Nedeli newspaper on Friday, U.S. Ambassador to Kiev Jeffrey Payette said that the U.S. had doubled its military assistance to Ukraine over the past three months and was going to expand it further.

The U.S. diplomat is reported to have urged Ukraine’s President-elect Petro Poroshenko to move decisively against insurgents in the east.

Mr. Poroshenko paid a visit to Mr. Payette at his residence on the election day, May 25, informed sources in Kiev told RIA Novosti news agency. “The U.S. envoy called for decisive action in the southeast” and promised to “quell the international outcry” over the possible high human cost of the crackdown, RIA Novosti quoted the sources as saying.

A disruptive move

If the report is true, it means the U.S. has been working to disrupt a European peace plan it has officially endorsed. A roadmap drawn up by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) earlier this month called on all sides in the Ukrainian conflict to halt violence and open peace talks.

Following the meeting, Mr. Poroshenko demanded that the military step up the “anti-terror” operations in the east, telling the military chiefs that some 2,000 casualties were an “acceptable” price to pay for crushing the revolt, according to the RIA sources.

Government forces have been instructed to complete the anti-insurgency campaign in the east by June 14, Ukraine’s Vesti newspaper said on Friday.

Meanwhile, anti-government militia on Thursday stormed another Ukrainian military installation near Luhansk, disarming about 60 soldiers. A day earlier the militia disarmed and handed over to parents about 80 young soldiers of another military unit near Luhansk.