The United States has delivered on March 25 ten armored vehicles to Ukraine as part of a $75 million non-lethal military support program intended to assist the fight against Russian-backed separatist forces in the country's east.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has welcomed a U.S. Air Force plane carrying the first batch of American armored vehicles, which he personally met at Boryspil International Airport. During a meeting ceremony, Poroshenko said that the provision of the equipment had demonstrated real support from the United States for Ukraine’s struggle to protect its territorial integrity and sovereignty.
The arrival of the American vehicles was heralded as a triumph not only on the Ukrainian side, but also by their enemies, the pro-Russian separatists. Rebels expressed their glee, saying it was inevitable that the new vehicles would fall into the hands of separatist militias in self-declared eastern Ukrainian republics, as happened during the fight for Debaltseve, where Ukrainian Humvees were seized by the Russian rebels.
