In the summer of 2018, Congress allotted $250 million in military aid to Ukraine, part of a continuing effort to help the Eastern European nation defend itself against Russia. Several months later, Laura K. Cooper, the Pentagon official in charge of Ukraine and Russia policy, touted the forthcoming aid package, which would be joined by $141 million from the State Department.
“You can count on the United States to remain your strong partner in strengthening Ukraine’s military to defend Ukrainian democracy,” Cooper said in a video address on Dec. 7, 2018, as she stood before the Ukrainian and American flags.
But months went by, and the assistance did not come, not even after a May letter from the undersecretary of defense in charge of policy, John C. Rood, in which he affirmed that the Ukrainians had “taken substantial actions to make defense institutional reforms for the purposes of decreasing corruption, increasing accountability, and sustaining improvements of combat capability enabled by U.S. assistance.”
Now less than a year later, Cooper, who played a crucial role in trying to move the Ukrainian aid forward, is set to testify Friday in the impeachment inquiry being led by Adam Schiff, the House Intelligence Committee chairman. Cooper is the first career official to testify from the Pentagon, which has largely remained outside the recent political controversy.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/poli...s-in-ukraine-probe/ar-AAIYFxl?ocid=spartanntp
Cooper's testimony has been rescheduled for next Thursday.