Ukraine Is Dying for NATO
In the midst of the counteroffensive by Ukrainian forces, that has been universally recognized as a failure, President Zelenskyy finally fired his Defense Minister Reznikov and called for “new approaches”. His ousting, after weeks of corruption and mismanagement scandals, has once again drawn attention to the rampant corruption and in-fighting within the leadership in Kyiv.
Strategically, it will likely have little effect, as military decisions presumably are made mainly by NATO powers, especially London and Washington. In fact, Reznikov’s replacement, Rustem Umerov, has no military experience at all. He’s an investor, financier, head of the Ukraine State Property Fund, and an anti-Russian of Crimean Tatar origin to boot. His task will mainly be to drum up more money and equipment from donor countries to prolong the war in the attempt to bog down Russia, despite the crushing losses.
The desperate situation in the country has now also been recognized by The Economist, one of the most gung-ho media outlets for the City of London. An Aug. 20 article observes that the population is showing increasing signs of fatigue, with even some frontline soldiers daring to speak up for a ceasefire. The conclusion: “The public mood is somber.”
The conflict is increasingly perceived as “a war that has no end in sight”. People who were keen to fight “volunteered long ago,” so Kyiv is now “recruiting mostly among the unwilling”. Even “hoping for success in the counter-offensive has become an act of self-destruction”, the article says, since it only delays the inevitable defeat. The article goes so far as to cite an interview with a sniper, Konstantin Proshinsky, who called Zelenskyy’s goal of militarily reconquering all of the territory conquered by Russia “self-gratifying populism”.
Nonetheless, the Biden Administration just announced Aug. 29 the 45th tranche of military aid to Ukraine. This one, said to be worth $250 million, consists of air defense and artillery munitions, mine-clearing equipment, medical vehicles, and other equipment “to help Ukraine counter Russia’s ongoing war of aggression on the battlefield and protect its people,” according to the DOD release. Total aid now amounts to around $130 billion!
The cold-blooded calculations of the U.S. war party were bluntly expressed by Senators Lindsey Graham (Republican) and Richard Blumenthal (Democrat), who visited Ukraine on Aug. 23. At a press conference in Kyiv before leaving, Graham claimed that by spending only 3% of the annual U.S. defense budget for Ukraine, Ukrainian forces “have destroyed half of the Russian army”. “This is the best investment for American security ever; Ukraine is a fantastic partner — we have not seen such a partner since Churchill.”
Sen. Blumenthal was even more explicit. In the Connecticut Post Aug. 29, he wrote that Americans should be “satisfied that we’re getting our money’s worth on our Ukraine investment…. for less than 3% of our nation’s military budget, we’ve enabled Ukraine to degrade Russia’s military strength by half…. All without a single American service woman or man injured or lost.”
We could add to that Senator Mitt Romney, a former Republican presidential candidate, who recently stated that the U.S. “is diminishing and devastating the Russian military for a very small amount of money. We are losing no lives in Ukraine”. It’s also great for defense industry giants, all three could have added.
As we know, American politicians tend to blurt out what many of their European counterparts think, but don’t dare to express as bluntly. But the cynical intention is the same.
