Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain and committee member Sen. Lindsey Graham said Tuesday the continued fighting in Debaltseve in eastern Ukraine shows “it is long past time” to provide lethal defensive weapons to the country.
“President Obama should do so immediately, rather than hide behind a failed attempt to negotiate with an aggressor when conditions on the ground render diplomacy ineffective,” the senators said in a statement Tuesday.
“With more than 5,000 Ukrainians killed and many more wounded, it is long past time to provide defensive weapons to Ukraine and to impose additional sanctions.”
According to reports midday Tuesday, the Russian-backed forces claimed they had captured the eastern Ukraine city of Debaltseve, although fighting was reported to continue throughout the city, according to Reuters.
The ceasefire negotiated last week aims to end more than 10 months of fighting between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian forces.
While the ceasefire went into effect at 12:01 a.m. Sunday and was largely upheld in most of the country, intense fighting continued throughout the weekend in Debaltseve, prompting the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine to release satellite images of heavy artillery that he identified as Russian, not belonging to the separatists.
On Tuesday, the State Department said all options remained on the table despite the continued fighting in Debaltseve and that a diplomatic solution was in the best interests of all parties.
The separatists “cannot pick and choose what areas they want to have a ceasefire,” said State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki. The continued fighting “is a flagrant breach of the ceasefire.”
Secretary of State John Kerry spoke with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Monday to discuss ways to encourage Russia to abide by the ceasefire, Psaki said.
Psaki said, despite the continued fighting, an opportunity remains to achieve a political solution and avoid any further escalation of force.
“Getting into a proxy war with Russia,” Psaki said, “is not in the interests of Ukraine or of the international community.”
