The Current

Raising the stakes, sending weapons to Ukraine

As violence ramps up in eastern Ukraine, as belief settles in that sanction against Russia have done little to calm it, there's real talk about sending in weapons and arming the Ukrainian military. But a proxy war on Russia's door is no small step....

As violence ramps up in eastern Ukraine, as belief settles in that sanction against Russia have done little to calm it, there's real talk about sending in weapons and arming the Ukrainian military. But a proxy war on Russia's door is no small step.

Calls to arm the Ukrainian military in its fight with Russian-backed rebels aren't new. But there is new urgency to them as the violence in eastern Ukraine intensifies.

Sending in weapons is something the Obama administration has long resisted, but Taras Kuzio thinks that the time has come. He's a senior researcher at the Canadian Institute for Ukrainian Studies. He was in our Toronto studio.

James Carden is a columnist and a contributing editor to The National Interest magazine. He's also a former US State Department advisor on US-Russia relations and he was in Washington.

We are frankly at the end of the line here. You just can't stand by and watch people being slaughtered with superior equipment. Blankets don't do very well against tanks.- U.S. Senator John McCain to the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday, making the case to send weapons to Ukraine

This segment was produced by The Current's Julian Uzielli.

A resident covers the window of his apartment with a plastic sheet inside a residential block, that was damaged by a shelling on Wednesday according to locals, in Donetsk. (Maxim Shemetov/Reuters)