The President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko met president Obama at the White House on Thursday. He has also given a speech before Congress in which he compared his country with Israel by saying that, like Israel, Ukraine has a right to defend its borders. He continued by saying that this is not only Ukraine’s war but America’s and Europe’s war. He pleaded in Congress for more sanctions against Russia that would, to quote Time Magazine “help distinguish between good and evil” but also for a special US security status for Ukraine.
Despite the fact that the White House announced a significant non-lethal humanitarian help package to Ukraine worth $7 million there was no agreement on supplying lethal help to Ukraine. Of course the opinions on this course of action vary greatly from those that consider not supplying weapons to be the right course of action to those that see this as a policy of appeasement towards Russia. Indeed the Wall Street Journal noted that the Europeans and Obama may worry that providing lethal aid for Ukraine may be seen as an act of provocation by Vladimir Putin and cause an escalation in the Ukraine crisis, maybe even disturb the rather shaky truce that is now keeping Eastern Ukraine in balance.
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While it is certainly true that “a war cannot be won with blankets” it is equally true that at the moment we have a situation of relative stability in the region that could be maintained. All this talk happens while, for the first time since the beginning of the Ukraine crisis, a high Russian official acknowledged publicly that western sanctions are indeed hurting the Russian Economy. Dimitry Medvedev said that the sanctions imposed on the country “are testing Russia” and that the Russian economy is slowing. This admission finds itself in contrast with past comments on the sanctions by Russian officials who said that the sanctions do not manage to hurt the economy and if anything, they help develop local businesses. However, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development said Thursday that there would be no economic growth this year and that, in 2015 we may even see the Russian economy contract.