Trump to use presidential authority to send weapons to Ukraine, sources say | Hacker News Reader

Trump to use presidential authority to send weapons to Ukraine, sources say

reuters.com

9 pointsMilnerRoute6 comments

"The package could include defensive Patriot missiles and offensive medium-range rockets, but a decision on the exact equipment has not been made, the sources said. One of the people said this would happen at a meeting on Thursday..."

"Ukraine's top priorities are Patriot missile interceptors and GMLRS mobile rocket artillery which may be included in the package. The weapons could be on the front lines within days because stocks are positioned in Europe."

My understanding of the situation is a tug of war between the Pentagon and the President. Supposedly, Patriot missile battery inventory is only at 25% of levels required by planned conflict forecasts. Follow up questions are: “What planned conflicts?” and “What does current production throughput look like?”

Taco has been hard on him but this is pretty much his first and last brand. I guess we will be seeing more of Putin's girlfriend now?

I’m really curious why Trump is suddenly open to aiding Ukraine. Regarding the war, he’s been pretty favorable to Russia until now. As with all things Trump, the answer is usually to figure out how this can benefit him personally, but there’s no obvious benefit here

> curious why Trump is suddenly open to aiding Ukraine

Putin is an idiot. He had a perfect hand to play, and only had to engage in flattery. But his ego (and possibly domestic position) wouldn’t allow it, so he stonewalled Trump thereby forcing a situation where a war America could have been made to ignore is going to threw though another few hundred thousand Russian youth and another significant factor of its force-projection and industrial capacity.

Ah of course. I was looking at it from the greed angle and totally overlooked the pettiness angle.

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