rt.com 16 Jun, 2022 17:51
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Ukraine conflict has to end with diplomacy – US
Kiev says it won’t back down, encouraged by Washington’s weapons
© Getty Images / Walter Bibikow
As high-ranking White House officials
argued the conflict in Ukraine has to have a diplomatic solution, media outlets close to US intelligence reported on Thursday of increasing concerns about Kiev’s hard-line position amid the deteriorating situation on the battlefield. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s defense minister vowed to fight until total victory.
The US will continue to help Ukraine
“to the maximum extent possible,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Thursday,
“first on the battlefield, and then, ultimately at the negotiating table. We think this has to end with diplomacy.”
Sullivan was speaking at the Center for New American Security (CNAS), a Washington, DC-based lobby group close to the Democratic Party.
CNAS is funded by the likes of Northrop Grumman and Raytheon, which stand to make huge revenues from replenishing American weapons stocks after the conflict. It also received at least $500,000 last year from the US Department of Defence to promote its interests.
It was at CNAS that the Pentagon’s policy chief Colin Kahl
revealed earlier this week the US would send Ukraine guided missiles for the HIMARS rocket launchers.
While NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has
suggested that Ukraine might have to give up some territory for peace, Sullivan said such a decision was entirely up to Kiev.
“We are not going to be pressing them to make territorial concessions. We think that’s frankly wrong,” he told CNAS.
READ MORE: Biden questioned US hawks over Ukraine – media
Sullivan’s comments came after a NBC News report which claimed that some US and European officials were
“increasingly concerned that the trajectory of the war in Ukraine is untenable” and were
“quietly discussing” asking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to
“temper his hard-line public position” that no territory will ever be ceded to Russia.
The outlet cited seven current and former US and European officials. The story was co-authored by Ken Dilanian, who is
known for links with the CIA. One anonymous US official said Washington was not pressuring Kiev to make concessions,
“as some Europeans are,”but was
“planning for a long war” instead.
NBC also claimed that US President Joe Biden was
“not happy” when Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin talked about
“winning” the war in late April, after visiting Kiev, but was reportedly persuaded when they told him their remarks had been misinterpreted by the media.
“They believe that we can win; we believe that they – we can win – they can win if they have the right equipment, the right support,” Austin said
at the time, adding the US wanted to
“see Russia weakened.”
Though Biden allegedly told both Austin and Blinken to
“tone it down,” there is no indication the Pentagon chief has done so.
On Wednesday, presiding over the ‘contact group’ for arming Ukraine in Brussels, Austin
vowed to
“bolster Ukraine's armed forces to help them repel Russian aggression now [and] in the future.”
READ MORE: Pentagon updates US goals in Ukraine
The Ukrainians have received more weapons than they had asked for, according to General Mark Milley, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs. Kiev had asked for ten battalions of artillery, and got twelve. The US and its allies also supplied Ukraine with more than 97,000 anti-tank systems,
“more than there are tanks in the world,” Milley said.
“They asked for 200 tanks; they got 237 tanks,” Milley added.
“They asked for 100 infantry fighting vehicles; they got over 300. We’ve delivered, roughly speaking, 1,600 or so air defense systems and about 60,000 air defense rounds.”
Ukrainian Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov
told CNN on Thursday that Kiev will
“liberate all our territories, all of it, including Crimea,” using the NATO-supplied weapons to first stabilize the front and then launch a counter-offensive. Ukrainian Major-General Dmitry Marchenko
said on Wednesday he wanted to use US-supplied weapons to target the Kerch Bridge, connecting Crimea to the Russian mainland.
While Austin’s policy chief and Biden’s former security adviser Kahl claimed the fighting was going well for Kiev, senior Ukrainian officials admitted to losing
1,000 men every day, as the Russian and allied forces continued to advance.
According to reliable information, under the pretext of the alleged security providing for civilians, the Ukrainian authorities have blocked all exits from their controlled settlements towards the liberated territories of the people's republics of Donbas, Zaporozhye, Nikolayev, Kharkov and Kherson regions, thus endangering civilians and forcing them to evacuate to western parts of Ukraine on their own.
The hypocritical statements by official Kiev on the need to organise humanitarian corridors to the AFU-controlled areas are considered as attempts to win time for redeploying and restoring the combat capabilities of its troops. At the same time, militants of nationalist battalions have organised total supervision of civilians at the checkpoints in the cities of Dnepr and Zaporozhye.
From 1 to 16 June 2022, the fates of 367 detainees are still unknown to their families and friends: most of them are women and teenagers.
️The Ukrainian authorities have thus confirmed again that the civilians who follow an alternative point of view on the situation in the country are 'second-class citizens' like the population of eastern Ukraine. At the same time, the countries of the so-called civilised West are well aware of the criminal acts committed by the Kiev regime, but continue to hide this information from their own citizens.
READ MORE: Zelensky bans Ukrainian opposition parties
?
Ukrainian neo-Nazies.
️ LPR Ministry of Foreign Affairs: we will treat foreign mercenaries at the Azot plant in case of surrender in accordance with their status
