Vajdich, who previously worked on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee where he was in charge of regional issues in Europe and Eurasia, cautioned that it was unclear whether Kiev’s engagement with the Trump administration’s policy goals had “fundamentally transformed” Trump’s attitude toward Ukraine. “The fact that the Russians have invaded a country in the heart of Europe in the 21st century is something that hasn’t changed from one administration to the next,” he said.

In the months following the weapons sale, Poroshenko ordered Ukraine’s top anti-corruption prosecutor tasked with probing corruption under former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych to stop cooperating with Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s work in Ukraine and ties to Russia, according to two sources familiar with the request. The New York Times first reported on that order on Wednesday, indicating that Kiev had blocked the Manafort investigations just as the Trump administration was finalizing the weapons deal in an attempt to stay on Trump’s good side. Trump, according to the U.S. official, saw Manafort’s legal problems as a function of Yanukovych’s regime rather than a reflection of Poroshenko’s.

The deal was a political victory for Poroshenko—who is facing a tough reelection next March—and for Trump, who has been accused of kowtowing to Russia. But it is still largely symbolic. “It’s a political symbol that allows others to understand that Ukrainian security is important to the U.S.,” Havrylov said. “Even just the presence of weapons on Ukrainian soil is significant.” Balazs Jarabik, a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace whose research focuses on Ukraine, agreed. “This delivery symbolizes for Kiev the ongoing support of the U.S. for Ukraine, or actually an increased one as Obama never agreed with this step (what was proposed by the Pentagon).”

The U.S. official defended the decision to store the weapons away from the battlefield, arguing that it will allow Ukraine to maintain greater control over them. Not everyone agrees that this is the best move, however. Michael Carpenter, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense with responsibility for Russia, Ukraine, Eurasia, and the Balkans, told me that “storing anti-tank missiles hundreds of miles from the front lines defeats the whole purpose of using these weapons as a deterrent” and “drastically reduces their effectiveness.”

“The whole point is to make your adversary think twice about the numbers of casualties they might sustain as a result of their tanks coming under fire,” Carpenter said. Vajdich acknowledged that the weapons were “not necessarily going to change the course of things on the ground.” But he argued that, substantively, the Trump administration’s policies have been “good” for Ukraine. “There obviously was quite a bit of fear in Ukraine, when Trump took office, that there was going to be some kind of massive policy shift with regard to Ukraine and Russia,” Vajdich said. The weapons deal, Vajdich argued, was evidence to the contrary. “His cabinet was pushing for this, and it was something that allowed him to counter this narrative that he is in bed with the Russians,” Vajdich said. “That leads to fewer people pointing fingers at him.”

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