Blinken in Kyiv: U.S. determined to ensure Ukraine’s battlefield success

5 comments

1. So his presence gives some passive buffs, right? Must be helpful… How about bare minimum 7 requested Patriots, maybe their magic even stronger?

2. Thanks, Antony, that’s an amazing joke.

   >[Biden thought the secretaries had gone too far, according to multiple administration officials familiar with the call. On the previously unreported conference call, as Austin flew to Germany and Blinken to Washington, the president expressed concern that the comments could set unrealistic expectations and increase the risk of the U.S. getting into a direct conflict with Russia. He told them to tone it down, said the officials. “Biden was not happy when Blinken and Austin talked about winning in Ukraine,” one of them said. “He was not happy with the rhetoric.”](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/secretaries-defense-state-said-publicly-us-wanted-ukraine-win-biden-sa-rcna33826)

   Then, [from NewYorker](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/10/16/trial-by-combat)

   >Sullivan clearly has profound worries about how this will all play out. Months into the counter-offensive, Ukraine has yet to reclaim much more of its territory; the Administration has been telling members of Congress that the conflict could last three to five years. A grinding war of attrition would be a disaster for both Ukraine and its allies, but a negotiated settlement does not seem possible as long as Putin remains in power. Putin, of course, has every incentive to keep fighting through next year’s U.S. election, with its possibility of a Trump return. And it’s hard to imagine Zelensky going for a deal with Putin, either, given all that Ukraine has sacrificed. ***Even a Ukrainian victory would present challenges for American foreign policy, since it would “threaten the integrity of the Russian state and the Russian regime and create instability throughout Eurasia,” as one of the former U.S. officials put it to me. Ukraine’s desire to take back occupied Crimea has been a particular concern for Sullivan,*** who has privately noted the Administration’s assessment that this scenario carries the highest risk of Putin following through on his nuclear threats. In other words, there are few good options.

   —-

   >“The reason they’ve been so hesitant about escalation is not exactly because they see Russian reprisal as a likely problem,” the former official said. “It’s not like they think, Oh, we’re going to give them atacms and then Russia is going to launch an attack against nato. It’s because they recognize that it’s not going anywhere—that they are fighting a war they ***can’t afford either to win or lose.”***

   Then, from Blinken himself:

   >Our focus is on continuing to do what we’ve been doing, which is to make sure that Ukraine has in its hands what it needs to defend itself, what it needs to push back against the Russian aggression, **to take back territory that’s been seized from it since February 24th**, to make sure as well that it has the support economically and on a humanitarian basis to withstand what’s happening in the country every single day. That’s our focus.
   Source: Press release published on the website of the US government.:Secretary Antony J. Blinken With Editor in Chief Matt Murray At The Wall Street Journal CEO Council Summit, Interview

   Also, to quote from ~eight months ago, with promised Assault Breacher Vehicles being supplied only ***AFTER*** official end of counteroffensive:

   >[A senior Ukrainian official, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military matters, said Kyiv received less than 15 percent of the quantity of demining and engineering materiel, including MICLICs, that it asked for from Western partners ahead of the counteroffensive.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/07/15/ukraine-war-russia-mines-counteroffensive/)

   [And from about the same time around](https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraines-lack-of-weaponry-and-training-risks-stalemate-in-fight-with-russia-f51ecf9):

   >BRUSSELS—When Ukraine launched its big counteroffensive this spring, ***Western military officials knew Kyiv didn’t have all the training or weapons—from shells to warplanes—that it needed to dislodge Russian forces. But they hoped Ukrainian courage and resourcefulness would carry the day***.

   Plus, from general Clark

   [https://www.csis.org/analysis/reflections-ukraine-war](https://www.csis.org/analysis/reflections-ukraine-war)

   >
   **we’ve got thousands of tanks in the United States; we’ve sent 31**. We have a whole fleet of A-10 Warthogs out there sitting in the desert; we’re going to get rid of them. They’re still sitting there. We have hundreds of F-16s that are around, and we delayed it and delayed it and delayed it. We have ATACMS that are obsolete. We’ve still got 155 dual-purpose ICM munitions that we didn’t send. It was – it was measured. **The response was measured. It was calibrated**. And what many of us in the military tried to say is: Look, **I understand, you know, the policy is we don’t want Ukraine to lose and we don’t want Russian to win**, OK? **That’s the policy. But you can’t calibrate combat like that. You either use decisive force to win or you risk losing**.

3. You wouldn’t fucking know it for the past seven months.

4. Yea, dragging their assess like no tomorrow. Terrified of Putin, what he “might do”. What an embarrassment; now any bad actor with a nuke can just hold US and EU hostage, better give them some land and resources, or you know, they “might” nuke you, so let’s just stand back everyone and write some strongly worded letters and do some conferences.

5. Insert Tim Robin’s “you sure about that?!” Meme. I’m so tired of this half assed approaches with nice words to cover for the lack of action.