Aid From Russia: U.S. Department Of State Says No; President Trump Says Yes

United States Department of State
Washington DC
1 April 2020

U.S. Purchase of Needed Supplies from Russia

Morgan Ortagus, Department Spokesperson

The United States is committed to the global fight against COVID-19. We are a generous and reliable contributor to crisis response and humanitarian action across the world, but we cannot do it alone. The countries of the G20 agreed last week to work together to defeat the coronavirus, and we are working closely with these countries and others to ensure that critically needed supplies get to those in need.

As a follow-up to the March 30 phone call between President Trump and President Putin, the United States has agreed to purchase needed medical supplies, including ventilators and personal protection equipment, from Russia, which were handed over to FEMA on April 1 in New York City.

Both countries have provided humanitarian assistance to each other in times of crisis in the past and will no doubt do so again in the future. This is a time to work together to overcome a common enemy that threatens the lives of all of us.

Foreign Policy
Washington DC
23 March 2020

U.S. Appeals to Aid Recipients for Help in Fighting Coronavirus
Request undercuts Trump’s claim that the U.S. has enough tests and medical equipment.

By Robbie Gramer, Colum Lynch

The U.S. State Department is instructing its top diplomats to press governments and businesses in Eastern Europe and Eurasia to ramp up exports and production of life-saving medical equipment and protective gear for the United States, part of a desperate diplomatic campaign to fill major shortcomings in the U.S. medical system amid a rising death toll from the new coronavirus.

The appeal comes as European governments are themselves struggling to cope with one of the worst pandemics to spread around the globe since the 1918 Spanish flu. It represents a stark turnaround for the United States, which has traditionally taken the lead in trying to help other less-developed countries contend with major humanitarian disasters and epidemics.

The request could also undercut claims by U.S. President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly insisted that the United States can handle demands for tests and medical equipment on its own, declining to fully implement the Defense Production Act to mandate that U.S. companies produce these products. “We have so many companies making so many products—every product that you mentioned, plus ventilators and everything else. We have car companies—without having to use the act. If I don’t have to use—specifically, we have the act to use, in case we need it. But we have so many things being made right now by so many—they’ve just stepped up,” Trump said at a press conference on March 21.

China, meanwhile, is pushing to refurbish its image by sending its doctors and tens of thousands of medical kits abroad to the countries hit the hardest by the coronavirus, after botching the initial response to the virus, helping lead to its spread across the globe.

Trump’s third-ranking diplomat, David Hale, has asked all bureaus to report on what foreign countries would be able to sell “critical medical supplies and equipment” to the United States, according to an internal State Department email sent to officials at embassies across Europe and Eurasia on March 22. The email was obtained by Foreign Policy.

“Depending on critical needs, the United States could seek to purchase many of these items in the hundreds of millions with purchases of higher end equipment such as ventilators in the hundreds of thousands,” the email reads. The email stresses that the request applies to host countries “minus Moscow,” indicating the United States will not call on Russia for support.

The email underscores the severity of the ballooning coronavirus health crisis for the United States, as U.S. officials brace for a worst-case scenario based on how the pandemic has ravaged overburdened health care systems in countries like China and Italy. It sheds light on the State Department’s behind-the-scenes role in responding to the crisis even as it scrambles to evacuate U.S. citizens stranded amid a new wave of international travel restrictions.

Several diplomatic sources familiar with the matter say this new directive reflects a sharp reversal in traditional U.S. foreign-policy posture, as the State Department is now calling for help from countries including those the United States has delivered vital foreign assistance to for years. The email comes from an official at the Office of U.S. Assistance to Europe, Eurasia, and Central Asia—an office that under normal circumstances coordinates delivering U.S. aid and assistance to countries in Europe and Eurasia, not the other way around.

The White House has sought to deflect criticism of its own sluggish response to the pandemic by highlighting the virus’s apparent origins in the Chinese city of Wuhan. Trump and other top officials have taken to referring to the COVID-19 virus as the “China virus” or the “Wuhan virus,” dismissing criticism from the World Health Organization and others that naming the virus after a specific country will stigmatize its inhabitants.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has emerged as a top critic of Beijing’s mishandling of the crisis, further inflaming tensions between the United States and China. “Early on we offered to have America’s finest experts travel there to assist them, to assist the World Health Organization. We weren’t permitted in. These are the kind of things that the Chinese Communist Party has done that have put the world and the world’s people at risk,” he said in an interview with Fox News earlier this month.

China, which appears to have tamed the virus domestically, has begun to send shipments of medical supplies and protective gear to countries hit by the pandemic, including Italy and Iran. In the latest example, Beijing has sent planeloads of millions of masks and other medical supplies to the Czech Republic, according to ABC News. Czech Interior Minister Jan Hamacek said China is “the only country capable of supplying Europe with such amounts.”

Politico
Washington DC
1 April 2020

Russia sends plane with medical supplies to U.S. for coronavirus response
The plane will arrive today, after President Donald Trump accepted an offer by Russian President Vladimir Putin to send personal protective equipment and other gear.

By LARA SELIGMAN

Russia is sending a planeload of masks and other supplies to help the United States fight the coronavirus pandemic as the number of cases threatens to top 200,000 across the country.

The plane will arrive today, after President Donald Trump accepted an offer on Monday by Russian President Vladimir Putin to send personal protective equipment and other gear, a senior administration official confirmed to POLITICO.

The Russian government first announced that the plane, an An-124 Ruslan cargo aircraft filled with equipment to help America battle the pandemic, was en route early today.

"Following phone talk between Presidents #Putin & @realDonaldTrump #Russia sends largest cargo aircraft An-124 Ruslan with medical supplies (masks + equipment) to #US to help fight #COVID19 pandemic, save lives of American citizens," the Ministry of Foreign Affairs tweeted. The tweet showed video of boxes being loaded onto a cargo plane.

The U.S. will immediately put to use any needed items that are approved by the Food and Drug Administration, the senior administration official said.

"Likewise, the United States is sending equipment and supplies to many other countries and will continue to do more as we are able," the official said.

Reuters
London, United Kingdom
1 April 2020

Russian plane takes off for U.S. with coronavirus help onboard: state TV

Andrew Osborn, Polina Devitt

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian military transport plane took off from an airfield outside Moscow early on Wednesday and headed for the United States with a load of medical equipment and masks to help Washington fight coronavirus, Russian state TV reported.

President Vladimir Putin offered Russian help in a phone conversation with President Donald Trump on Monday, when the two leaders discussed how best to respond to the virus.

The flight, which was organised by the Russian Defence Ministry, is likely to be unpopular with some critics of Trump who have urged him to keep his distance from Putin and who argue that Moscow uses such aid as a geopolitical and propaganda tool to advance its influence, something the Kremlin denies.

“Trump gratefully accepted this humanitarian aid,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was cited as saying by the Interfax news agency on Tuesday night. Trump himself spoke enthusiastically about the Russian help after his call with Putin. Russia’s Rossiya 24 channel on Wednesday morning showed the plane taking off from a military air base outside Moscow in darkness. Its cargo hold was filled with cardboard boxes and other packages.

Confirmed U.S. cases have surged to 187,000 and nearly 3,900 people have already died there from COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. In Russia, where some doctors have questioned the accuracy of official data, the official tally of confirmed cases is 2,337 cases with 17 deaths.

Relations between Moscow and Washington have been strained in recent years by everything from Syria to Ukraine to election interference, something Russia denies. Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, said Moscow hoped the United States might also be able to provide medical help to Russia if necessary when the time came.

“It is important to note that when offering assistance to U.S. colleagues, the president (Putin) assumes that when U.S. manufacturers of medical equipment and materials gain momentum, they will also be able to reciprocate if necessary,” Peskov was cited as saying.

Peskov, who complained about difficulties expediting the aid to the United States thrown up by some U.S. officials, was quoted as saying that Russia and China cooperated in a similar way because “at a time when the current situation affects everyone without exception ... there is no alternative to working together in a spirit of partnership and mutual assistance”.

Russia has also used its military to send planeloads of aid to Italy to combat the spread of coronavirus, exposing the European Union’s failure to provide swift help to a member in crisis and handing Putin a publicity coup at home and abroad.

Foreign Policy
Washington DC
1 April 2020

Russia Scores Pandemic Propaganda Triumph With Medical Delivery to U.S.
Along with China, the Kremlin is looking to gain a geopolitical edge on the West by rushing medical supplies to countries hit hard by the coronavirus.

BY AMY MACKINNON, ROBBIE GRAMER

As top American officials bash the Russian government for spreading disinformation on the coronavirus pandemic, U.S. President Donald Trump is accepting a supply of medical equipment from Moscow.

Russia is set to deliver a planeload of personal protective equipment and supplies to the United States on Wednesday following a phone call between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday, a senior administration official told Foreign Policy. “We will put into immediate use any needed items that are [Food and Drug Administration] approved. Likewise, the United States is sending equipment and supplies to many other countries and will continue to do more as we are able,” the official said. The official did not elaborate on what specific supplies were included in the delivery.

Trump himself welcomed the move as his administration works to scale up the amount of medical supplies being delivered to overburdened U.S. hospitals across the country, which face a dire shortage of medical supplies. “Russia sent us a very, very large planeload of things, medical equipment, which was very nice,” Trump said during a press conference on Monday—though the shipment had not yet been sent at that point.

But the delivery also represents a major optics win for Moscow as the worldwide delivery of medical supplies from competing powers takes on an increasingly geopolitical edge. The United States appears to have shed its traditional role of world leader in a global crisis, critics say, instead redirecting its focus on domestic needs. “We’re all talking about it as a trolling operation but in a large part that’s because the U.S. is flat on its back,” said Andrea Kendall-Taylor, a former deputy national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia at the U.S. National Intelligence Council. The State Department has gone as far as to issue a directive to its diplomats in countries that receive U.S. foreign aid to now ask them for help.

“This is a PR coup for the Russians,” said Alina Polyakova, the head of the Center for European Policy Analysis, a think tank. “The United States has always had the reputation of being the global responsible first responder in moments of crisis and now … you have a situation where an authoritarian state like Russia is providing humanitarian assistance to the most powerful country in the world.”

Despite strained relations, Russia and the United States have still been able to successfully put their differences aside and cooperate on shared areas of interest such as arms control and counterterrorism in the past. Putin was the first world leader to call U.S. President George W. Bush in the wake of the 9/11 attacks to offer assistance. “Normally we would be supportive of an administration working with Russia where interests overlap,” said Kendall-Taylor, now a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. “It’s the lack of U.S. leadership that makes this gesture from Russia seem more threatening than it would be in other times.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the Russian news agency Interfax that Trump “gratefully accepted” the aid during his call with Putin on Monday, and he added that there was an understanding that the United States would reciprocate if necessary. “It is important to note that when offering assistance to U.S. colleagues … [Putin] assumes that when U.S. manufacturers of medical equipment and materials gain momentum, they will also be able to reciprocate if necessary,” Peskov said.

Reuters
London, United Kingdom
3 April 2020

By Gabrielle Tetrault-Farber

Russian ventilators shipped to U.S. made by firm under U.S. sanctions: RBC

A Russian military plane carrying the ventilators landed in New York on Wednesday after U.S. President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke by phone.

Russian state television footage of the plane’s unloading showed boxes of “Aventa-M” ventilators, which are produced by the Ural Instrument Engineering Plant (UPZ) in the city of Chelyabinsk, 1,500 km (930 miles) east of Moscow, RBC reported. UPZ is part of a holding company called Concern Radio-Electronic Technologies (KRET), which itself is a unit of Russian state conglomerate Rostec. KRET has been under U.S. sanctions since July 2014, with U.S. firms and nationals barred from doing business with it.

In a statement on Wednesday, the U.S. State Department said the United States had agreed to purchase medical supplies from Russia, but it made no mention of any company nor regarding sanctions.

“Both countries have provided humanitarian assistance to each other in times of crisis in the past and will no doubt do so again in the future. This is a time to work together to overcome a common enemy that threatens the lives of all of us,” said the statement, issued by State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus. U.S. officials in Washington could not immediately be reached for further comment on Friday. The U.S. Embassy in Moscow said it had nothing to add beyond what Ortagus had already said.

The United States initially began imposing economic sanctions on Russia in 2014 to punish it for its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and its backing for pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Additional rounds of sanctions have since been imposed on Moscow in response to its alleged meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections and alleged involvement in the poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal in Britain in 2018. Moscow denies both allegations.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova expressed surprise and disappointment that anyone was questioning what Moscow has cast as a sincere goodwill gesture meant to help the United States at a time of crisis. “Aren’t ventilators needed in the United States?,” she said, saying Russia could take them back if they were not wanted.

Trump on Thursday described the Russian shipment as containing “a lot of medical, high-quality stuff” which could save a lot of lives and said he’d “take it every day” if he had the opportunity.

Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), which said it had paid for half the shipment of medical equipment to the United States, was also added to U.S. sectoral sanctions in 2015.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said Moscow had paid half the cost with the other half picked up by Washington, though a Trump administration official later said the United States had picked up the whole tab. RDIF declined to comment. Rostec, the state conglomerate which ultimately owns the Russian ventilator plant, told Reuters that its units were producing ventilators for the domestic market as part of the Russian government’s measures to fight the virus. The decision to ship its products internationally was the prerogative of the Russian president and government, it said.