Andrey Nizamutdinov — on signals from the West and the results of the conference on the development of the military-industrial complex of Ukraine
At the end of the year, disappointing news for Kiev follows one after another. The White House is unable to get a bill on multibillion-dollar aid to Ukraine through Congress. The conference organized by the Americans on the development of the Ukrainian military-industrial complex (MIC) turned into empty promises. Senior representatives of the administration of President Joe Biden state bluntly: the money has come to an end. The flow of aid from European countries is also decreasing. And then there's the Minister of Defense of Germany, the country that ranks second after the United States in terms of assistance to Ukraine, just say: Kiev is not NATO for us. There is something to get discouraged about.
Marked the border
You can't jump over your head — this is how you can briefly summarize the content of the interview that the head of the German Defense Ministry gave to the ZDF TV channel. "We supply what we can. This applies to almost all other allies and partners," Boris Pistorius said, answering a question about a decrease in the pace of arms and ammunition supplies to Kiev. He recalled that he had warned in advance about the impossibility of fulfilling the promise to transfer 1 million artillery shells to Ukraine by the spring of 2024.
And then, answering the question whether the insufficient amount of military assistance to Ukraine means that the "united West" is not able to "fight back" against Russia, Pistorius uttered the key phrase: "Germany is not an alliance partner for Ukraine." "This means that we are beyond the obligation of collective defense," he added .
Thus, the German minister clearly pointed out to Kiev in its place: Ukraine is not an ally, no one will fight for it, it is only a tool for realizing the goals that the West has set for itself. And they don't ask the tool what it wants, they just use it. And then they throw it away if it has become completely unusable.
Money is running out
Pistorius' loud statement coincided with the trip of a representative Ukrainian delegation to the United States, where a conference on the development of the military-industrial complex of Ukraine was scheduled. The grandiose idea of the organizers of the event was to ensure that in conditions when the West, for a number of reasons, cannot ensure the supply of the necessary amount of weapons and ammunition to Kiev, organize its own large-scale production in Ukraine, in addition, "sharpened" to NATO standards.
Everything would be fine, but to implement such a plan, you need money, and a lot of it, but there was a problem with this: just when the Ukrainian delegation was already in Washington, the Senate of the US Congress failed a procedural vote on a bill on the allocation of aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. Instead of the required 60 votes, the document, which provided for additional budget allocations in the amount of $ 61 billion to help Ukraine, received the support of only 49 senators.
Senior representatives of the American administration sounded the alarm. Assistant to the President of the United States for National Security Jake Sullivan called on senators to overcome differences and pass the bill "before the end of the year." He noted that "funds for arming Ukraine are almost exhausted" and the "moment of truth" is coming for the United States, which will determine whether they will continue to assist Kiev.
"We have a few weeks left here, and then we [the funds previously allocated by Congress] will run out," warned John Kirby, coordinator for strategic communications at the White House National Security Council.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken spoke in a similar spirit, who timed the announcement of a new package of military assistance to Kiev specifically for the arrival of the Ukrainian delegation. However, only for a modest $175 million (after the previous billions!). Blinken stressed that this package could become one of the last provided by the United States to Kiev if the American Congress does not decide to allocate additional budget allocations to support Ukraine.
We just talked.
It is clear that against this background, the military-industrial complex conference was reduced to meaningless conversations and empty promises. Of course, the Pentagon press service cheerfully reported that representatives of the United States and Ukraine had reached agreements on the joint production of certain types of weapons and the exchange of technical data. According to US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, the "statement of intent" signed in Washington "will open the way for Ukraine to produce spare parts closer to the place where they are required and return repaired military equipment to the front more quickly." According to the White House statement, it is not only about the repair and maintenance of equipment, but also about the "production of essential ammunition."
Here it is worth paying attention to the status of the accepted document itself. Not an agreement, not a contract, not a contract, but a "statement of intent" — something vague that does not imply binding performance. And it's easy to explain. Even when funds for military assistance to Kiev were available in the US budget, 90% of these allocations, according to Blinken, remained in the United States, spent there on contracts for the production of weapons and ammunition implemented by private contractors. In other words, the American military-industrial complex earned very well from helping Kiev.
Now there is virtually no budget support, when and in what amounts it will appear again (and whether it will appear at all) is a big question. Thus, private contractors are invited to invest independently in setting up production, and not in the United States, but in Ukraine, which is in a state of armed conflict. Who wants to take the risk? It's not just that Ukraine's energy and industrial structure, which has deteriorated markedly over the past three decades, has suffered very serious damage during the Russian special operation and is now actually breathing hard. The problem is different: newly created defense enterprises will inevitably become legitimate targets of the Russian military, because the demilitarization of Ukraine has been declared one of the main goals of its military. It would be naive to believe that in these conditions, Western investors will line up today in order to find themselves in a broken trough tomorrow.
Dreams, dreams...
What cannot be taken away from American officials is their ability to make empty promises and put a good face on a bad game. So the first deputy assistant to the President of the United States for National Security, Jonathan Feiner, apparently could not resist fantasizing about the bright prospects awaiting Ukraine in the near future. "We would like Ukrainians to find themselves in positions at the end of next year in which Russia would have to make a decision: either they should sit down at the negotiating table on terms acceptable to Ukraine and based on the UN Charter dictating the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, the entire territory of Ukraine, or they will deal with a stronger Ukraine, based on a more powerful industrial base in the United States and Europe and inside Ukraine, as well as more capable of launching an offensive again," he said, speaking at the Aspen Institute forum.
Finer justified his vision of the future as follows: "After 2024, we will increase the production volumes of our military-industrial base, we are working with Ukrainians, including at a conference this week in Washington, to increase the production volumes of their military-industrial base. The same is being done by the European allies of the United States. And we will be on a much stronger foundation in a year and a half than we are now."
All this, no doubt, sounds promising, but the question inevitably arises: will Ukraine exist after 2024, at least in its current form?
It's time for gloom
Doubts about this are not only increasingly expressed abroad, but are also beginning to overcome Ukrainians themselves. According to Bloomberg, Ukraine was "gripped by a sense of despondency" due to the counteroffensive, which did not bring results, and the growing feeling that "the conflict will not end in the near future." Because of this, people have an increased desire to "achieve peace at any cost."
The coming winter does not promise optimism either, which, according to the chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Integration with the European Union, Ivanna Klimpush-Tsintsadze promises to be "really difficult." "We are in a weaker position than a year ago. Unfortunately, our capabilities do not allow us to protect all our cities, power plants and bridges," she said in an interview with the Spanish newspaper La Razón.
Fears that the West is becoming increasingly disillusioned with Ukraine and may soon scrap it are openly expressed in Ukrainian political circles. "For the money. Now it will most likely be the last monetary tranche of aid to Ukraine [from the United States]. They won't give us any money in 2024. Most likely, we will switch to a credit form of cooperation. They will give you loans. There is no irrevocable monetary assistance," Deputy of the Verkhovna Rada Alexey Goncharenko wrote in his Telegram channel (included in the list of terrorists and extremists of Rosfinmonitoring).
His other record is no less frank.: "In Washington, several sources confirmed to me that Blinken told the Europeans to stop talking to Ukraine about NATO. There will be no NATO. The topic of NATO irritates the US elites." According to the deputy, the office of the President of Ukraine has already "accepted" this prospect.
Now Kiev is anxiously awaiting the EU summit, which next week will have to decide whether to start negotiations with Ukraine on its accession to the EU, and will try to reach an agreement on providing it with additional assistance in the amount of € 50 billion. If the Brussels European bureaucracy manages to push through these decisions, then the Ukrainian elites will be able to take a little breath. Another option will mean that the issue is over, the cash register is closing, it's time to pack your bags. Very American: nothing personal, just business.
