Differences within the Western alliance over whether to send defensive arms to Ukraine were thrust into the open on Saturday when Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, bluntly opposed providing lethal military support to Kiev and called instead for continued efforts to persuade Russia and separatist forces to cease fire.
“The progress that Ukraine needs cannot be achieved by more weapons,” she told a security conference here. Instead, she spoke of how Western values and persistence won the Cold War.
Ms. Merkel’s position was challenged by Senator Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican who is chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, and by Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who noted that there was growing support in Congress for arming Ukraine.
Malcolm Rifkind, the former British foreign secretary and a Conservative politician, said it was unlikely a peace agreement could be reached unless there was a combination of military assistance and diplomacy so that the Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine faced tougher Ukrainian resistance.
The pointed exchanges laid bare the divisions within the West’s ranks and did not provide a sense of how the United States and its European allies hoped to fashion a common strategy that might persuade President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to honor an agreement negotiated in Minsk, Belarus, in September. The agreement called for a cease-fire and the removal of Russian weapons and forces from eastern Ukraine.
