Top US lawmakers urge Obama to send weapons to Ukraine

Leading Republicans and Democrats have urged President Barack Obama to provide lethal defensive weapons to Ukraine in its fight against pro-Russian rebels.

In a letter, House Speaker John Boehner and other lawmakers said Russia’s actions in Ukraine were a “grotesque violation of international law”.

They said that a recent truce had only consolidated rebel gains in the east.

Ukraine and the West accuse Russia of helping the rebels with weapons and soldiers – a claim Moscow denies.

Independent experts echo that accusation, but Russia insists that any Russians serving with the rebels are “volunteers”.

At least 6,000 people are believed to have been killed since the conflict in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions erupted last April, a month after Russia annexed Ukraine’s southern Crimea peninsula.

In other developments:

EU foreign ministers are to meet later on Friday in Latvia to discuss the Ukraine crisis
Nato’s deputy chief Alexander Vershbow said on Thursday that Russia was less and less able to conceal the deaths of “large numbers” of Russian soldiers in eastern Ukraine.