Before Russian forces began withdrawing from the area around Kyiv earlier this month, US military policy seemed to be aimed at delicately cutting a geopolitical needle: strengthening Ukraine’s defenses without provoking a NATO-Kremlin conflict.
In the last two weeks, however, current and former US officials have said much of the caution in the early stages of the war has been almost ruled out. Joe Biden, the president of the United States, has become much harsher in his rhetoric, accusing Vladimir Putin of “genocide” and insisting on the establishment of a war crimes tribunal.
Nowhere is the change in policy more obvious than in the weapons that the United States has begun to supply Ukrainian forces.
Just a month after opposing a Polish scheme to supply MiG-29 fighters to the Ukrainian air force, the White House turned to facilitating the supply of spare parts to Kyiv to return 20 fighter jets to the air – and significantly expanding the range of heavy weapons which delivers in battle.
Vladimir Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, who is on a continuous campaign to pressure the United States and its allies to provide more and heavier weapons as the conflict escalates, said he would meet with Anthony Blinken, Ukraine’s secretary of state, in Ukraine on Sunday. The United States, and Lloyd Austin, the United States Secretary of Defense. The State Department and the Pentagon declined to comment.
“This is an administration that has been very reluctant in the recent past to provide equipment to give Ukrainians a capability that could be provocative for the Russians,” said Ian Brzezinski, who led NATO’s Pentagon policy during the Bush administration. he is now on the Atlantic Council.
Brzezinski noted that six weeks ago, the administration did not provide armored personnel carriers, long-range howitzers or helicopters. “It’s a very clear and profound change.”
Officials say the policy change is the result of several factors, including a desire to do more to help Kyiv after evidence of atrocities in Russian-occupied areas before withdrawing from the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital.
There was also a reassessment of the threat posed by Russia’s nuclear arsenal, a sword that Putin rang at the start of the war, but which analysts say is now unlikely to deploy. And the United States is trying to respond to the changing needs of the Ukrainian military as it prepares to repel Moscow’s renewed attack in the eastern Donbass region.
Vladimir Zelensky, President of Ukraine, depicted in an address to the US Congress last month, is conducting a continuous campaign of Western pressure to provide more and heavier weapons © Pool / AFP via Getty Images US opposes Polish fighter supply scheme Ukraine’s Air Force MiG-29, but has since facilitated the supply of spare parts to Kyiv to return 20 fighter jets to the air © Reuters
One of the most important reasons for the change, current and former officials say, is the surprisingly effective performance of the Ukrainian military, which exceeded even the most optimistic expectations of military analysts inside and outside the Pentagon.
“Initially, it was estimated that the Ukrainian military could not last more than a handful of weeks,” said Chris Murphy, a Democratic senator on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “If this is your assessment, of course, the equipment you will send is different than if you expect a war that will last for months and years.
The change is evident in the rapid pace of arms supplies making their way from the United States to Ukraine. Every day, eight to 10 cargo flights, most of them made by the United States, land near the country’s western borders, carrying heavier weapons worth hundreds of millions of dollars, US officials said. Defense officials describe a process in which equipment, once authorized for dispatch, reaches Ukraine in 48 to 72 hours.
Of the $ 3.4 billion in lethal aid the United States has promised since the start of the war, the United States has dedicated nearly half, or $ 1.6 billion, since last week. “I can’t think of another case, certainly not in the middle of a war, that does this as quickly as we do,” said a former senior U.S. military commander.
It has taken time for the United States and its allies to figure out what systems they can provide without provoking a response from Moscow, but so far Russia has not attacked any shipments. “We have no indication that any of the Western equipment or shipments have been hit or otherwise deterred by the Russians,” said a senior NATO official.
Initially, estimates were that the Ukrainian military could not last more than a handful of weeks
Over the past week, the United States has shifted its focus to providing weapons that are seen as more aggressive, such as heavy artillery, helicopters, armored personnel carriers and deadly drones. In contrast, Washington’s first aid package to Ukraine when the $ 350 million conflict began included armor, small arms and ammunition and bulletproof vests.
Biden maintains two of the red lines he drew at the start of the invasion: no US troops on Ukrainian soil and no NATO-imposed no-fly zone that could drag the military alliance into direct conflict with Russia.
But there were some important changes on the periphery. US troops begin training Ukrainians in Europe. And the United States has sent a Patriot system to Slovakia, which will be run by US troops, so that Bratislava can send its S-300 air defense system to Ukraine.
And while the United States opposed Poland’s proposal for the MiG-29, John Kirby, the Pentagon’s spokesman, signaled earlier this week that Washington now supports an unnamed country’s efforts to send fighter jets to Ukraine.
There are no signs that the United States plans to give up any time soon. Biden said Thursday that he would ask Congress for more money next week, “to keep the flow of weapons and ammunition to the brave Ukrainian fighters uninterrupted.”
Underlining the strategy is Washington’s assessment that the conflict will last for months, if not longer.
“What you see. . . The United States recognizes that we are in trouble now, “said Dan Bayer, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who served as ambassador to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe during the Obama administration.
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