Angela Merkel advarte mot å levere våpen til Kiev på sikkerhetskonferansen i München lørdag. Hun ble møtt med åpen spott og spe fra republikanske kongressmedlemmer som kalte henne toskete.

EU sakker akterut i spillet om Ukraina og har ikke mave for opptrapping. Obama-administrasjonen er splittet. Den påtroppende forsvarsministeren Ashton Carter er tilbøyelig til å levere våpen, mens State og Det hvite hus er tilbakeholdende.

“The progress that Ukraine needs cannot be achieved by more weapons,” she told a security conference here.

Ms. Merkel’s position was challenged by Senator Bob Corker, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who noted that there was growing support in the American Congress for arming Ukraine.

And Malcolm Rifkind, the former British foreign secretary and conservative politician, asserted that it was unlikely a peace agreement could be reached unless the Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine faced tougher Ukrainian resistance.

Tyskland og Merkel gikk foran med sanksjoner, men har mistet motet nå hvor diplomati ikke lenger holder. Tyskland risikerer å bli utmanøvrert, både av et republikansk flertall og Putin.

Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican who has argued forcefully for weapons deliveries to Ukraine, summed up his reaction to Ms. Merkel’s speech with one word: “Foolishness.”

Mr. Putin, he predicted, would next seize the port of Mariupol in eastern Ukraine with a view to building a land bridge from Russia proper to Crimea, which the Kremlin annexed last March. “I can assure you that he will not stop until he has to pay a much higher price,” said Mr. McCain, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Merkel presterte å dra inn at ingen hadde kommet på tanken å befri østtyskerne med våpen.

She even recalled her own history, of growing up in East Germany, where she was seven years old when the Berlin Wall went up in August 1961. Nobody had contemplated liberating East Germans with a military strike against the Soviets, she noted. She added that she did not begrudge that, but that she and millions of others needed patience through 28 years of dictatorship before winning their freedom peacefully when the Wall came down in November 1989.

Ms. Merkel has argued throughout the Ukraine conflict that patience is needed, though whether she believes that should extend to decades is not clear.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/08/world/europe/divisions-on-display-over-western-response-to-ukraine-at-security-conference.html?emc=edit_tnt_20150207&nlid=8105498&tntemail0=y&_r=0