March 12, 2015

Saakashvili lobbies for arms to Ukraine

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WASHINGTON – Former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili says he is meeting with U.S. lawmakers and officials in Washington to discuss “increasing legislative pressure” to provide weapons to Ukraine.

Mr. Saakashvili wrote in a February 25 post on his Facebook page that “never have so many [U.S.] lawmakers agreed to meet with me, even when I was president: 34 meetings in three days.”

Many prominent members of the U.S. Congress have advocated providing arms to the Ukrainian government in its standoff with pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine that Washington accuses Moscow of backing.

The Facebook post featured a picture of Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D-Md.), a vocal Kremlin critic, standing next to Mr. Saakashvili, who wrote that his “meetings have begun.” Mr. Saakashvili is currently serving as an adviser to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.

In a February 24 op-ed published by The Washington Post, Mr. Saakashvili said opponents of Moscow’s actions in Ukraine must raise “the military cost” for Russian President Vladimir Putin “by supplying Ukraine with defensive weapons, specifically antitank weapons that can halt the further advance of the Russian tanks and armored vehicles.”

The pro-Western Mr. Saakashvili served as Georgia’s president during the country’s brief war with Russia in 2008, after which Moscow recognized Georgia’s breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as sovereign states.

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