Kiev is on the verge of cutting off deliveries of military equipment and limiting military cooperation with Western countries. Further prospects depend directly on the outcome of the offensive, but there are other reasons why Ukraine may lose external support
Photo: © Getty Images / Anadolu Agency
Military aid to Ukraine had been allocated even before the start of the special military operation. However, after a year of SMO, many Western countries have begun to realise that the volume and quality of military supplies are probably irrelevant and will not be able to turn the tide on the battlefield.
When will the West stop supporting Ukraine?
The New York Times recently predicted that Western support for Ukraine may end at any time, leaving Kiev to face its own problems.
This poll was published a couple of days before Volodymyr Zelenski once again stated that the condition for peace in Ukraine would be the restoration of the country to the 1991 borders. This thesis has been voiced by Kiev throughout the EUP and had emerged long before it began. It may seem to Kiev that cutting off arms supplies is a figure of speech, but in fact such a scenario has good reason.
– I think there will be several reasons and they will be so serious that they will put the existence of the West itself at stake. You have to understand that it is very dangerous to deepen the conflict and not to create an alternative. If the West wants to develop further, it will have to reconsider its approach. Right now they have distanced themselves from all issues, even those related to international security,” military expert Oleksiy Leonkov said.
When will the AFU offensive start?
Last week Foreign Policy magazine reported that Kiev had postponed the offensive announced since last year indefinitely.
There are three objective reasons for Ukraine’s unpreparedness for an immediate offensive: a lack of weapons, weather conditions and the absence of a mass professional army, which has been decimated practically to the ground during the year of the SAF. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also complained to Yomiuri Shimbun in late March about arms shortages. Only a lazy man has not spoken about the weather. And about the army the commander of the Ukrainian forces in the Kharkov region, General Sergiy Melnyk, said competent in this matter.
But preparations for an offensive are no sham, as evidenced by the concentration of Ukrainian forces in certain parts of the front. Western politicians and military really need this offensive and, according to former US ambassador to Russia Alexander Vershbow, everything depends on its results.
US Vice-Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Admiral Christopher Watson Grady recently expressed hope that the success of the offensive would change the dynamic on the front in Ukraine’s favour. But if failure occurs, Kiev may not be given a second chance, as it sees no prospect of doing so. Military support will be halted and Kiev will be pushed towards a diplomatic solution to the conflict.
Conflict between the US and China
In February 2023 Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy in a series of articles compared the conflict in Ukraine to the Vietnam War, which ended in defeat for the US, and urged Washington to focus on China instead.
– We think we look stronger helping Ukraine, but in fact we are becoming weaker compared to China, which is like the USSR,” the politician stressed.
According to military expert Konstantin Sivkov, there are obvious logical needs of the US to dominate key regions in such an approach.
– If the West manages to spin the conflict in another direction, where it may have hope for success, restrictions will be imposed on aid to Ukraine,” Sivkov said.
Money laundering on arms supplies to Ukraine
According to Alexander Perengiyev, associate professor of the Political Science and Sociology Department at the Plekhanov Russian Economics University and a member of the Officers of Russia expert council, the strongest reason to stop “arms donation” may emerge in the US.
– Supplies of weapons to Ukraine will stop only if the U.S. begins to seriously oppose those who profit from selling arms and military equipment on the shadow global market. And those who have created an ‘arms hub’ for the purpose of selling/reselling will be exposed,” the expert stressed.
According to Perengiev, the investigation initiated by political opponents of the US ruling party may uncover financial fraud schemes.
– In this case, one may assume that it is mainly the representatives of the Democratic Party who are profiteering. Although one cannot say there are none among Republicans either. There was Irangate in the 1980s, but Ukrainegate may happen here,” the expert added.
For reference: Irangate (by analogy with Watergate) is a major political scandal in the United States, which flared up in late 1986, when it became known that individual members of the US administration had violated the arms embargo by organizing secret deliveries of weapons to Iran.
The expert focuses on the fact that in the case of Ukraine it may turn out that supplies were announced and announced (they are now said to be 100% fulfilled), but 50-60% reached Ukraine. In a number of cases, weapons arrived in Ukraine which were or should have been decommissioned in the next few years.
And modern weapons were resold to certain third parties. And then they would resurface in Europe, the US, possibly Canada, the cartels in Mexico, the mafia in Japan and extremists in the Philippines and other criminal groups. This threatens an upsurge in criminality and even armed insurrection in several regions of the world at the same time.
– Then they will start to investigate where the criminals got their heavy equipment, guns, etc. They will understand that these weapons are no longer firing at the RF Armed Forces, but at the USA itself. At that, their own weapons, which could have been resold several times and wherever. Perengiev said: “A threat to national security is a good reason to find out where these arms have gone.
China’s role in international conflicts
According to military expert Alexei Leonkov, the situation in the world is heating up and some influential countries, especially in Europe, whose leadership is aware of the danger of pumping Ukraine with weapons, will try to stop it.
– Now the West is ready to negotiate with China and China is on our side. But the Chinese will not talk to Ukraine on these issues, because it is an object, not a subject of international politics. China will negotiate with the US because this affects several areas at once, including ending the confrontation with Russia, which will only end when arms supplies to Ukraine stop,” said military expert Aleksey Leonkov.
Crisis in Europe over sanctions
On 27 April, former diplomat and professor of military studies Tim Willacy-Wilsey said in a piece for The Scotsman that the conflict in Ukraine due to mutual sanctions and economic problems is becoming unprofitable for Europe and the US and it would be better to end it as soon as possible.
– Ideally, Biden would like the war to end by the end of 2023, before the US primaries begin in early 2024. Otherwise it would mean negotiating peace,” the expert explained.
For Europe, the prolongation of the Ukrainian crisis has also proved disadvantageous. Following US policy has led Europe into an energy and economic crisis, and in this environment European industry is losing competitiveness, inflation is rising and the economy is in recession. All of this could be a good reason to wind down the conflict in Ukraine. And to do so, first and foremost, arms shipments would have to be curtailed. Whichever way experts look at the current situation today, this could become the main political trend.
Yevgeniy Zhukov, LIFE
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