House Speaker John A. Boehner and top Democrats and Republicans on all of the key security committees called on US President Barack Obama to provide lethal American arms to Ukraine, The Washington Post reported.
They fired off a bipartisan letter Thursday saying Congress has already given him permission, and he needs to act soon to stop Russian aggression.
In stark language Boehner and 10 colleagues, including the ranking Democrats on the Armed Services, Foreign Affairs and intelligence committees, said the president needs to understand Ukraine is a major geopolitical test for the US, and one it is in danger of losing.
"It is even more than simply a component of a revisionist Russian strategy to redraw international borders and impose its will on its neighbors," the lawmakers said in their letter. "It is a grotesque violation of international law, a challenge to the west and an assault on the international order established at such great cost in the wake of World War II."
Congress last year passed, and Mr. Obama signed, a law allowing transfer of defensive military equipment to Ukraine. And this week Ukrainian officials delivered to the Pentagon and Mr. Obama's national security staff a list of military equipment they could use.
But despite having permission, Obama has not taken advantage of it.
Obama has been reluctant to transfer arms, and his aides say he's still pondering it and watching how the cease-fire agreed to last month is being carried out.