McCain Urges West to Avert 'Landlocked Ukraine'

Former U.S. presidential contender and outspoken Kremlin critic John McCain warned on Thursday that Western allies risked leaving behind a "landlocked Ukraine" unless they provided Kiev with weapons to fend off Russia.

The Republican senator alleged that Russian President Vladimir Putin had pushed 4,000 troops and a vast quantity of tanks across the border to help separatist fighters in Ukraine establish a land-link with the Crimea peninsula which Moscow seized from Kiev in March.

"Putin's appetite only grows with the eating," McCain told reporters on his fourth visit to Kiev since the February ouster of a Russian-backed leader and rise to power of a new pro-Western team.

McCain urged U.S. President Barack Obama "and the world... to urgently provide defensive weapons (and) intelligence" to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko so he could preserve the unity of the ex-Soviet state.

Poroshenko is expected to order a ceasefire if his envoys and rebel leaders sign a Kremlin-backed peace plan on Friday that aims to halt nearly five months of bloodshed but leaves the political status of the separatist east up in the air.

The Kremlin denies playing any role in a recent counteroffensive that has seen the insurgents seize a large stretch of Ukraine's southeastern coast along the Sea of Azov linking Russia with Crimea.

A failure to supply Poroshenko's forces with weapons "eventually could lead to a landlocked Ukraine," McCain cautioned.

A seven-point blueprint unveiled by Putin calls for a halt to "offensive operations" by both sides and for Ukrainian forces to retreat from major rebel strongholds such as the cities of Lugansk and Donetsk.

Poroshenko's critics in parliament and the Ukrainian media have branded the peace plan a disguise for Kiev's surrender and urged him to reject the pact.

But the embattled Ukrainian leader said on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Wales on Thursday that it was "very important" for all sides to agree to a comprehensive truce.

McCain accused Putin of trying to leave the status of Ukraine's east uncertain for the immediate future -- a threat that would bar NATO from reviewing Kiev's expected membership request under its current rules.

"What Vladimir Putin would like to see is a frozen conflict," McCain said in reference to other lingering post-Soviet territorial disputes in countries such as Georgia and Moldova.