Amid growing tensions between the United States and Russia over the crisis in Ukraine, Washington is considering providing the Ukrainian forces with lethal weapons, according to US officials.<\/p>\n
US Secretary of State John Kerry and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey were open to discuss sending weapons to Ukraine, the New York Times reported on Sunday.<\/p>\n
NATO military commander General Philip Breedlove also supported providing such lethal assistance to the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cA comprehensive approach is warranted, and we agree that defensive equipment and weapons should be part of that discussion,\u201d a Pentagon official said.<\/p>\n
According to the report, eight former senior American officials would issue an independent report on Monday and they would urge Washington to send $3 billion in weapons to Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Anti-armor missiles and reconnaissance drones would be included in the aid.<\/p>\n
One official said that Susan E. Rice, Obama\u2019s national security adviser, is also now prepared to hear arguments for helping Kiev battle the self-proclaimed republics. If true, this would signal a paradigm shift in the White House\u2019s approach to the issue, which has so far been reluctant to escalate the crisis further than it already has.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough our focus remains on pursuing a solution through diplomatic means, we are always evaluating other options that will help create space for a negotiated solution to the crisis,\u201d<\/em> said Bernadette Meehan, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council.<\/p>\n To discuss the plan with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and other officials, Kerry will visit Kiev on Thursday.<\/p>\n On Sunday, clashes intensified between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian forces in eastern Ukraine. Both forces struggle for the control of the strategic government-held town of Debaltseve.<\/p>\n The United States and its allies accuse Russia of sending thousands of troops to support the pro-Russian forces.<\/p>\n Moscow, however, has denied any involvement in fighting over the territory.<\/p>\n SB\/AGB<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Amid growing tensions between the United States and Russia over the crisis in Ukraine, Washington is considering […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":896,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[62,1,125],"tags":[75,6,20,7,22,63],"class_list":["post-893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","category-news","category-united-states","tag-conflict","tag-defense","tag-russia","tag-u-s","tag-ukraine","tag-weapons"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Ukraine-Forces.jpg?fit=670%2C363&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7jJWb-ep","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=893"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":897,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893\/revisions\/897"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}