"The West needs to bolster deterrence in Ukraine by raising the risks and costs to Russia of any renewed major offensive. That requires providing direct military assistance — in far larger amounts than provided to date and including lethal defensive arms," the report entitled "Preserving Ukraine's Independence, Resisting Russian Agression: What the United States and NATO Must Do" states.
Prominent American scholars and former practitioners from the Atlantic Council, the Brookings Institution, the Center for a New American Security, and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs contributed to the report, including such figures as James G. Stavridis, a retired top NATO military commander, and Ivo Daalder, the ambassador to NATO during Mr. Obama's first term, Steven Pifer, a former US Ambassador to Ukraine and others.
The report concludes that the United States and NATO "must respond," both to support Kiev and "to push back" against Moscow, preventing what the authors called "Russia's unacceptable challenge to the post-war European security order."
While the warmongering scholars and former NATO commanders are pushing US President Obama towards the escalation of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, Human Rights Watch organization is alerting the international community about the growing number of deaths in the eastern regions of Ukraine.
HRW points out that the military standoff has already claimed the lives of 341 people, including 71 women and 6 children in the Donetsk region in January 2015. Political analysts and human rights activists stress that the conflict should be solved by diplomatic means only. If the United States decides to boost Ukraine's army military capabilities through lethal weaponry supplies it will inevitably aggravate further tensions in the region and provoke the new outbreak of violence in the torn-apart country, experts warn.
