Nominee for Pentagon’s No. 2 Backs Sending Ukraine Some Weapons
- Shanahan provides position before Senate panel votes approval
- McCain had skewered ex-Boeing executive as evasive at hearing
Pro-Russian separatists march during a parade in Donetsk on May 9, 2016.
Photographer: ALEKSEY FILIPPOV/AFP/Getty ImagesThis article is for subscribers only.
President Donald Trump’s nominee for deputy defense secretary has endorsed providing defensive weapons to Ukraine, a reversal from past U.S. policy and from his refusal to offer his thoughts on the issue at his Senate confirmation hearing.
Patrick Shanahan’s written answers to the Senate Armed Services Committee smoothed the way for the panel’s vote Wednesday to approve the former Boeing Co. executive to serve as the Pentagon’s No. 2 civilian official. Senator John McCain, the committee’s chairman, chided Shanahan at his confirmation hearing on June 20 for “just ducking us” on that and other issues and threatened to withhold his support.