According to the US White House’s website page of the Office of the Vice President Joseph R. Biden had a phone conversation with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko:
“Vice President Joe Biden spoke today with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko regarding the situation in the east, additional non-lethal U.S. security assistance to Ukraine, and new sanctions on Russian-backed separatists and their supporters. The Vice President noted with concern the ongoing violations of the ceasefire by Russia-backed separatists near Donetsk and Mariupol and their refusal to allow OSCE monitors unfettered access to the territory they occupy.”
The new US aid for Ukraine includes more radios, first-aid kits, surveillance drones, countermortar radar systems, military ambulances, 30 armored Humvees and 300 unarmored Humvees.
In the USA a lot of administration officials and members of both parties in Congress have urged President Obama to provide Ukraine with weapons because pro-Russian terrorists violate the cease-fire in Eastern Ukraine all the time.
The U.S. Republican Senator John McCain, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, urged the Obama administration to provide lethal weapons to the Ukrainian forces:
“The Ukrainians aren’t asking for American boots on the ground. That’s not the question here. They are asking for weapons to defend themselves,” underlined Mr. McCain. “They are being slaughtered and their military is being shattered.”
In recent months several top American officials, such as the US’s top military officer General Martin Dempsey, the Pentagon chief, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper called Washington to help Ukraine with lethal arms to fight pro-Russia forces. The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey told the Senate Armed Services Committee:
“I think we should absolutely consider lethal aid and it ought to be in the context of NATO allies because [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s ultimate objective is to fracture NATO.”
