Even as Chancellor Merkel of Germany, President Hollande of France and even the British government have requested in the strongest terms that  the U.S. not give military aid to Ukraine, the Obama administration has indicated that it is considering a massive increase in military aid to the government based in Kiev. The Kiev government, installed by a U.S.-backed coup about a year ago, has been attempting to subdue the Russian speaking majorities in the eastern and southern parts of the country who refused to recognize its legitimacy and rose up in rebellion. Please send an email to President Obama urging him to refrain from giving military arms to Ukraine. The German leader and President Obama held a joint press conference in Washington on the eve of another round of negotiations involving Russia, France, Germany and Ukraine in Minsk on Wednesday. President Obama did not rule out sending additional arms to Ukraine, even though he acknowledged that the arms could get in the wrong hands and could encourage the Ukraine government into more aggressive action that could escalate the war -- though he did agree to refrain from any such decision until after tne next round of negotiations. Ask President Obama to listen to the wisdom of European leaders who have the most to lose and agree to work with them for diplomatic solutions recognizing the legitimate needs of all sides in the conflict. Ukraine and neighboring countries, with southeast region in yellow. Crimea, shown in red, reunited with the Russian Federation after the coup in Kiev. The Ukrainian civil strife has recently reached a critical turning point and threatens to become a proxy war between nuclear armed NATO, backing Kiev, and nuclear armed Russia, which has supported the uprising in the Russian speaking East of Ukraine.   Many experts have argued that the US/NATO push into Eastern Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union is the real source of tension with Russia and of the push for regime change which led to the coup in Kiev. The US government spent $5 billion supporting intensely anti-Russian elements which achieved regime change in Kiev and which are now waging a vicious asymmetrical war against the ethnic Russian majority in the Southeast of Ukraine. The opposition to the Kiev regime has grown in the rebel regions of Donetz and Lugarsk as a result of the death of over 5000 (most of them attributed to the bombing and shelling of eastern cities by the Ukrainian forces) and a refugee crisis which has driven more than a million from their homes in the same region. Now is the time to turn negotiation and to diplomacy -- not to send weapons to Kiev. Standing with you for peace, Shelagh Foreman Program Director

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