Are you talking about the Times article? There’s nothing in it to suggest that.
Again, if you are referring to the Times article, I don’t see anything disgusting about the conduct of either party. Lots of disagreement and disconnect but that’s a common occurrence in a state of war.
Yes, there is. But you have to know the story in advance and read along the lines, using your background knowledge. There is a lot to take out in this article.
Right now, I cannot reproduce it. I read it as a free article (I no longer subscribe to the NYTimes).
The Biden adminsitration, throughout the war, has leaked like a sieve through unidentified “anonymous” sources. Every single leak to the media is on purpose. They were angered and there was panic (all of which have been rumoured before this NYTimes article, which reads like the gossip memoar of a Biden official, which is honestly probably what it is) when Ukraine sank the Moskva.They realised that Ukraine was in secret planning a cross border raid, again they vehemently (this has been known since forever, just confirmed here in more careful diplo-speak) were against, warning that they would not support it. Then you add the restrictions placed on Ukraine which I have been harping on about since 2022. The extreme and imo, excessive, targeting restrictions. Ukraine was not allowed to use HIMARS on Russian soil, not allowed to use US weapons at all and so on. Ukraine was also supposed to never attack Russian soil at all, even with their own weapons, but Ukraine has ignored the latter due to the outrageous advantage it grants Russian energy and arms industry.
It is not an outlandish extrapolation of events to state that the Biden admin’s strategy has been to support Ukraine moderatly, but extremely cautiously and calculate that sanctions and relatively high RU losses would change Putin’s calculus. The US has clearly and very evidently never been interested in defeating the Russian army inside Ukraine in way so that it could make Moscow come close to panic and has used very odd excuses throughout the war to enforce the targeting restrictions on Western weapons (US forced UK and France to abide by them, this is all known from prior), where US claimed that if Ukraine used US or NATO weapons against Russia inside Russia it could be seen as a US or NATO attack, which certainly breaks with International Law and tradition when it comes to warfare and third party weapons suppliers and is clearly just a substitute motive by Biden-Sullivan to constrain Ukraine and protect Russia from systemic shocks.
All of these restrictions, designed to cushion Russia’s anger and losses and hinder a Russian sudden military collapse (due to Sullivan and co fearing nuclear use) and erring on the side of extreme caution, have been draconically enforced by Washington throughout the war; meaning that Ukraine was never able to target Russian air bases logistics hubs or operational centres in Russia with effective weapons. This is the driving force behind Ukraine’s drone revolution and missile program too of course. It is infuriating because in 2023, if Ukraine had been given aid without these absurd restrictions that everyone but the Americans were against, Russia would not have a snowball’s chance in hell to win the war as the offensives of 24 would never have been able to materialise in the same manner. It is speculative if Ukraine’s 2023 offensive would have succeeded, but it’s hardly unlikely.
Only when North Korea deployed 12 000 men (but years after North korea sent artillery and millions of munitions) , but that too took weeks; did the Biden admin relent and allowed Ukraine to use HIMARS in Kursk battle zone specifically.
All of this has been very well known, but the Times article clarifies the chaos. Sadly, I am unable to reproduce it and double check at current.
Regardless, what do you think would have happened had Ukraine told the Biden admin that they would take a shot at the Moskva ? The Ukrainians assumed the US would leak it to Russia to warn them so they could not hit it. Ask yourself why the Ukrainians feared that and ask yourself how many times you read in the US media about the coming Ukrainian offensive etc. The US leaked like a sieve and it was by design to deescalate tensions and make sure that the Kremlin was never shocked or truly surprised. This is also why the Americans leaked in advance, sometimes months, at other times, weeks, before they supplied Ukraine with a new weapons system. To make sure the Russians were duly warned. Obviously, this would save the lives of hundreds or thousands of Russian soldiers and more crucially, important equippment such as fighters and bombers, who did not congregate at X, Y or Z after the delivery of long range weapon system X. And so on. This has been a continous story thoughout the war. The US has systematically denied ukraine the use of it’s weapons on Russian soil, warned Russia every time they delivered a new weapon so the Russians could take prior action and not be surprised. Specifically, European states have tried at lenght to persuade the US to not do this (sweden, Finland, the Baltics, Norway, France, the UK; all of them said publically loudly that they saw no legal issue with Ukraine using their weapons against Russia in a defensive war and that defensive wars were not relegated to only be fought on the soil of the invaded), but Biden admin never budged on this issue.
People have to remember that common ordinary Ukrainians, they view these US restrictions and lack of aid directly translating to Ukrainian corpses and more territory taken by Russia, more children missing out of their childhood, the war taking years longer and more infrastructure destroyed. This is why they loath the Biden administration.
People like me, I view it as de facto making sure that Ukraine cannot win by defeating the Russian Army Group and that the US strategy consisted in attriting the Russians into reconsidering. However, Ukraine cannot afford the attrition that they themselves take in this gruelingly long process and Russia does not care about high losses the way we in the West do. The US would have almost been in social collapse had it’s army taken 900 000 casualties. Russia, not so much. The Russian Civil Society is very different, the psyche very different and imo Sullivan and co does not understand Russian political culture and made the horrible mistake, thinking that they are much like us.
That means that Biden knowingly took upon himself to sacrifice ten-thousands of Ukrainian lives during this war, and countless destroyed cities thoughout the country, instead of backing Ukraine to the hilt and trying to end the war as soon as possible. He went for the rule-and-divide strategy. Weaken Russia and Europe at the same time.
Some people might say that’s Realpolitik, but it’s still utterly disgusting. Putin is the big butcher in this, but Biden isn’t far behind imo.
It’s Realpolitik and geopolitics, it’s disgusting, yes.
However, to defend him, I would like to add that he did not pursue this policy because he didn’t want Russia’s invasion to fail or because he wanted to weaken Ukraine just because.
I feel I should say that for the sake of honesty. I strongly disagree, almost everyone in europe strongly disagrees and think Sullivan-Biden absurdly cowardly and afraid; but their extreme abundance of caution is due to the russian nuclear arsenal. I just need this to be said. I loath it, I disagree, think the chance of Russia using nukes in Ukraine to be absolutely minimal (and certainly against the US because they aid Ukraine), but the American line was to not rock the boat.
More cynically and less understandable, is the weapons restrictions and not the warnings, because the restrictions were placed on Ukraine out of fear of Russian escalation in other realms (Hybrid-warfare) and sabotage hybrid-operations against the US. And that is far less understandable.
I’m not disagreeing with any of this. The way the US under Biden proceeded with aiding Ukraine was haphazard and deficient to say the least. Several grave errors can be attributed both to the US and the Ukrainian leadership as well.
I just don’t think that you can extrapolate from that that Biden and his administration did not want for Ukraine to prevail. They did, they just went after in a largely self-defeating manner, which ironically wasn’t that much different of the self-imposed restrictions during the Vietnam conflict.
However, taking into account that they were dealing with an unhinged regime (it is mentioned in the article that the US intelligence intercepted a Russian general calling for the use of tactical nukes when the Russians feared that Ukraine would attack Crimea), explains why they were careful to tread lightly. In the end, Biden’s restrictions couldn’t possibly have any other outcome but senseless losses for the Ukrainians, but they stemmed from fallacy and naivety rather than malice.
But I am not @Hope.in.your.heart . I personally, think the Americans “hoped” that Ukraine would prevail though minimum effort from their side, but the extremely risk-averse methods they used were so counter productive and made the war effort so difficult for already challenged underdog Ukraine, that it is some what hard to respect and understand why they had this hope, given their strategy played right into Putin’s palm. I realise that these risk analysts around Biden, the paranoia Crew, are not military experts, but you don’t really have to be a real expert to understand how difficult the restrictions and lack of effective aid, makes fighting Russia when Russia is on War Footing economically and All-In.
And these are intelligent people, so I do have some expectations of them. They also have National Security crews, including generals like Miley. And yet, they pursued this strategy at the cost of Ukrainian blood, time and land for so long that at some point, surely even idiots must have realised that they would have to change strategy if the over-all goal, in fact, is that Russia abandons its invasion and withdraws.
Just to be clear:
I don’t think it was “malice” as such, despite some US think tankers peddling the idea of supporting Ukraine to fight Russia over many years to keep Russia weak. But the intention only matters to a certain degree, the effect is what it is (or was).
Do we have any US-based posters who are pro-Russian?
Russia, in its current guise, is a stain on the world. Putin is an unaccountable monster. For over two decades he has ruled Russia with an iron fist, whether as Prime Minister or President. He wants an empire, and thinks nothing of taking the territory of other sovereign nations, using force to kill indiscriminately and get what he wants.
It is appalling that he is allowed to do this relatively unchecked. Recent reports that France and the UK are going to lock hands on providing peace-keeping troops are encouraging. I hope the rest of Europe joins in with that, and that it goes much further to re-arm and provide an independent deterrent so it’s giant neighbor to the east can’t continue to do what it wants.
Under Trump America is an unreliable ally, or no ally, seemingly doing everything that Putin would want them to do. What does Putin have on Trump to get such favorable treatment?
https://x.com/verekerrichard1/status/1906776112165949673
https://x.com/verekerrichard1/status/1906777592104927580
It is 10 000 more than 6 months ago. They are gradually scaling up.
Note however that this is mislabeled by many. Russia has a draft every 6th month, before the war and of course now. But they are indeed scaling up the numbers in the drafts. 6 months ago, it was 150 000.
Russian conscripts also don’t fight in Ukraine normally. They have, in 2022 during the invasion due to fuck ups in the RU chain of command. And also in 2023. However, they can be stationed in Russian annexed territory. And of course, when Ukraine invaded Kursk, they did so because it was very lightly defended only by a few conscript units. So they have to fight if the battle moves to where they are stationed.
I am just providing nuance since many think that Russia is using conscripts to storm trenches in Ukraine (they don’t, it has only happened on a couple of very rare occations).
https://x.com/kimhvik2/status/1907199902490198261
It is an absolute massive attack on Kharkiv