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 A senior U.S. administration official said on Monday no decision
had been made on whether to send arms to help Ukrainian forces fight
Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Considering such a move stems from frustration with Russian
President Vladimir Putin's refusal to blink over Ukraine, despite
Western sanctions and a financial crisis in Russia, and concern over
a surge in violence in past weeks.
It also reflects a dilemma: What can the West do if sanctions don't
work, or don't work quickly?
"A stronger Ukrainian military, with enhanced defensive
capabilities, will increase the prospects for negotiation of a
peaceful settlement," said a report by the Washington-based Atlantic
Council, which suggested military aid should include light
anti-armour missiles, drones and armoured Humvees.
Such words are welcome to Kiev's pro-Western leaders, whose forces
have suffered battlefield setbacks and who accuse Russia of sending
troops and weapons to back the rebels.
 Speaking in the northern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Tuesday,
President Petro Poroshenko expressed confidence that Kiev's Western
allies would rally to its help if need be. "I do not have the slightest doubt that a decision about the
possibility of supplying arms to Ukraine will be made by both the
United States and our other partners because we must have the means
to defend ourselves," he was quoted as saying by Interfax news
agency.
Right now, Ukrainian troops holding a rail hub near the city of
Donetsk are under pressure from separatists, whose artillery and
missile attacks are commanded by Russian military specialists.
Russia denies the accusations of direct involvement. It says
Washington has shown its true colours by backing what Moscow regards
as Kiev's desire to end the crisis by crushing the rebels rather
than though diplomacy.
Sending arms to Kiev might not even have much effect on the
conflict, critics say, and could encourage a full-scale Russian
onslaught on Ukraine's army that might increase the possibility of
direct Western intervention.
"Sending weapons is fanning the flame of this conflict and also
actually grist to the mill for the Ukrainian government, which is
doing everything it can to drag the United States and West further
into this dispute," said Otfried Nassauer, head of the Berlin
Information Centre for Transatlantic Security.
WESTERN DILEMMA
Western governments have shown little appetite for the idea of
sending in international peacekeepers, which would likely have to
include Russians and would be unacceptable to Kiev.
And a line of thinking may be developing in the West that Putin may
only respect force and will only blink if his bluff is called. By
that token, he may change tack if Ukraine is provided with defensive
means to turn the conflict into a prolonged struggle which Russia
may regret.
On the eve of a visit to Kiev on Thursday by U.S. Secretary of State
John Kerry, the stakes are rising, with the rebels and Kiev's forces
mobilizing more forces. Fifteen U.S. senators from both parties wrote to President Barack
Obama on Tuesday urging Washington and the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization to "rapidly" increase military assistance to Ukraine
with equipment such as antitank weapons, counter-battery radars,
armoured Humvees and increased training.
A source in Poroshenko's administration said that Ukraine needed as
much military help as possible from the West to defend both its
border and that of Europe.
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Russian officials have rallied around Putin over the annexation of
the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine last March and opinion polls show
his popularity is high despite the impact of U.S. and European Union
sanctions and a looming recession.
Faced by such defiance, the West appears to have few options for
increasing pressure on Russia apart from more sanctions, as it has
ruled out military force.
Providing arms, such as advanced radar systems to counter the
rebels' multiple-rocket systems, is still not the preferred option
although the U.S. Congress passed the Ukraine Freedom Support Act,
providing $350 million in military assistance for Kiev.
"We're not going to bring the Ukrainian military into parity with
Russia's military, certainly not in the near future," Ben Rhodes,
deputy national security adviser to President Barack Obama, told CNN
television in an interview.
"We have to keep the perspective that the best tool that we have to
apply pressure on Russia is that economic pressure through the
sanctions."
Ukraine's army of 200,000 would be unlikely to match Russian forces
if Moscow threw in much larger numbers of troops, possibly backed by
air power, to support the separatists.
"Individual supplies of Western arms are not capable of cardinally
changing the situation. What is needed is long-term cooperation,"
said Ukrainian military analyst Serhiy Zgurets.
Practical support is unlikely from the EU and NATO if Washington
decides to send in arms. This is important as Washington and the EU
are trying to avoid splits which Russia could jump on.
"Until now, the reason we haven't delivered lethal equipment is to
avoid an escalation which would involve Russia even more directly,"
said an official at NATO.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday her government did
not support arming Ukraine with "deadly, lethal weapons" to fight
the separatists.
Military commentator Alexander Golts told Russia's Nezavisimaya
Gazeta newspaper he did not believe Ukraine could use the weapons it
needs without hundreds of U.S. instructors.
"You can imagine the reaction to this by Russia, in the eyes of
which it would be NATO being deployed on our borders," he wrote.
(Additional reporting by Juliana Woitaschek in Berlin, Adrian Croft
in Brussels, and David Storey and Lesley Wroughton in Washington;
Editing by Giles Elgood)
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