Lawmakers to Obama: Arm Ukraine now

The White House came under bipartisan pressure from both sides of the Capitol to provide weapons to Ukraine Thursday.

Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee made a big push on the issue, while a bipartisan group of House members called for the same course of action in a letter.

“The United States must act with urgency to provide defensive lethal assistance to Ukraine,” said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the chairman of the Armed Services Committee.

“Russia’s invasion of sovereign territory of Ukraine, which has continued unabated in the face of political and economic sanctions, is the gravest threat to European security in decades,” he said.

{mosads}In an unusual display of bipartisan agreement, McCain was joined at the press conference by the committee’s ranking member, Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), and Sens. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska).

Meanwhile, the group of House lawmakers said that the administration needed to provide weapons to Ukraine to deter further Russian aggression. 

“We are calling on the Administration to increase its support for Ukraine. Tighter sanctions and greater humanitarian assistance should be part of that support, but now, more than ever, the U.S. must supply Ukraine with the means to defend itself,” they said in their letter. 

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), ranking member on the House Intelligence committee, was the lead signatory on the letter. He was joined by more than 30 Republicans and Democrats.

The U.S. and Western allies slapped economic sanctions on Moscow after it invaded Ukraine and annexed its peninsula of Crimea last March, but the country has continued to arm and train pro-Russian rebels in Eastern Ukraine. 

Secretary of State John Kerry said while visiting Ukraine on Thursday that President Obama is “reviewing all his options.” 

“Among those options obviously is the possibility of providing defensive systems to Ukraine,” he said, according to the Associated Press. 

However, he added, “We are not interested in a proxy war. Our objective is to change Russia’s behavior.”

The White House has so far turned down Ukraine’s requests for weapons out of fear it would further provoke Russia, but has provided nearly $122 million in non-lethal military equipment to Ukrainian forces, such as blankets, body armor and meal packets.

The senators said the time has come to provide weapons as well, given gains by rebels in recent weeks and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s violation of a ceasefire agreement.

“Blankets don’t do very well against tanks,” said McCain. Providing arms “will raise the risk and costs Russia must incur to continue its offensive,” he said.   

McCain said that since April, Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine have killed 5,358 Ukrainian forces, wounded 12,235 others and killed 224 civilians.

Reed said Ukrainian forces have fought courageously. “We must help Ukraine to defend itself against Russian aggression,” he said.

“We cannot let Vladimir Putin get away with invading another sovereign country. … This is what we should do, lethal assistance,” Nelson added.

“We should always be on the side of struggling democracies,” Graham said. “Helping a friend somewhere makes friends of America everywhere feel better.”

Blumenthal called Putin “a thug.”

“He has not responded to sanctions. Sanctions are not working,” he said.

“He is the schoolyard bully,” added Ayotte. “I am so glad we’ve come together on a bipartisan basis to do this.”

Donnelly calle Ukraine a “friend” of the United States and said providing arms “is the least that we can do.” 

Meanwhile, the letter from the House members urged the administration to provide “a substantial amount of military assistance as soon as possible in 2015,” and in the following years.