The European Union’s foreign policy chief yesterday came out against a bipartisan call in the United States to provide lethal, defensive weapons to Ukraine in its fight against Russian-backed separatists.
House Speaker John Boehner and a group of top Democrats and Republicans wrote to President Obama calling for deliveries but so far have found few backers in the 28 nation EU.
Federica Mogherini said yesterday that “the European Union is doing enough” and insisted that the implementation of the peace deal brokered in Minsk last month “is the way to go forward.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel are been particularly outspoken against pouring more firepower into the conflict in eastern Ukraine. Mogherini said that “what Ukraine needs now is not only the full respect of its sovereignty, of its territorial integrity, but it is also peace.”
Yesterday, Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz said arms deliveries “would only stoke the fire.”
“Our goal must be a ceasefire, not an escalation,” Kurz said