News.Kyiv.Me.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is reconsidering his opposition to giving Ukraine defensive
weapons and other lethal aid to help its struggling military repel Russian-backed rebels, a
possible escalation that has had strong support from many in his national-security team.

The shift suggests the White House is growing increasingly concerned that its reliance on
punishing Russia with economic sanctions isn’t doing enough to change President Vladimir Putin’s
thinking about backing fighters in eastern Ukraine.

A senior Obama administration official said the president still sees pitfalls in plans to send
defensive lethal aid to Ukraine, and a decision on the matter is not imminent. However, the
official said a recent spike in violence between Ukraine and Russian-backed separatists has sparked
a re-examination of U.S. policy.

The president’s worries about sending higher-powered equipment to Ukraine are threefold,
according to the official. He sees risk in starting a proxy war between the U.S. and Russia, which
the West accuses of supplying rebels in eastern Ukraine. He is worried that the Ukrainian military
might not be trained well enough to use U.S. equipment effectively. And he believes no amount of
arms would put Ukraine on par with the Russian military.

Secretary of State John Kerry plans to meet with Ukrainian leaders in Kyiv on Thursday, although
administration officials downplayed the notion that his trip would coincide with new announcements
on U.S. policy.

Monday in Ukraine, government troops fought to defend Debaltseve, a strategic railway hub
between the rebel-held cities of Luhansk and Donetsk that once was home to 25,000 people. Almost
2,000 residents have fled in the past few days alone.

Rebel forces have mounted assaults on government positions there, but all were repelled, a
spokesman for Ukrainian military operations in the east, Andriy Lysenko, said Monday.

Elsewhere, the rebel stronghold of Donetsk came under heavy, sustained shelling once again. City
authorities said Monday that 15 civilians had been killed over the weekend in the fighting, while
Ukraine authorities said five soldiers had been killed and 29 wounded overall in the east just in
the past day.