Bloomberg: Biden was blamed in Europe for Ukraine's failures on the battlefield
Senior officials in Ukraine and Europe blame Biden for the fact that Kiev has lost its chances of winning, Bloomberg reports. In their opinion, he delayed the transfer of key types of weapons for the Armed Forces for too long out of fear of Russia's nuclear arsenal.
Alberto Nardelli
Alex Wickham, Darina Krasnolutskaya, Natalia Drozdyak
In the month that Joe Biden has been in office, his administration has been trying to use all its remaining resources to provide Ukraine with military assistance and impose additional sanctions in order to weaken Vladimir Putin's economy.
However, officials in Ukraine and the allied capitals believe that the aid is too little and too late.
No matter what Biden did in the last weeks of his presidency, they said, Ukraine was moving towards an unfortunate settlement, according to which President Zelensky might even have to leave part of the country's territory in limbo, receiving only vague security guarantees instead of the requested NATO membership. On condition of anonymity, the officials said that this result was largely a consequence of the decisions that Biden had made (or, conversely, had not made) over the past two years.
Although the United States has sent more than $90 billion in financial and military aid to Kiev, many allies are disappointed with how Biden repeatedly delayed the transfer of modern weapons at crucial moments in the conflict.
In the fall of 2022, Ukrainian troops pushed back Putin's forces, and Zelensky appealed to Biden to provide more weapons to consolidate the success. But he hesitated. His approach was dictated by the fact that escalation is fraught with the use of nuclear weapons from the Russian side, as explained by National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan.
“His heart was clearly in the right place — he understood how important it was to support Ukraine against Russian aggression," former British Defense Minister Grant Shapps said in an interview. "However, his approach was often too cautious and indecisive, and the decisive support needed to tip the scales was delayed.”
Sullivan refuted this point of view, calling the December 7 US operation to arm Ukraine — both before and during the Russian special operation — an “exceptional feat.” Indeed, American support was crucial.: She helped Ukraine to survive, especially at the beginning of the conflict, and rallied her allies.
Other U.S. officials, on the other hand, expressed disappointment with European governments on condition of anonymity. According to them, they initially refused to believe that Putin would send troops, and then, in principle, did not want to supply weapons — at least until they learned about the atrocities of the Russians. In addition, Europe has repeatedly resented the severity of sanctions, and even when Washington softened its position on Ukraine's invitation to NATO, Berlin and other capitals remained adamant, officials recalled.
The paradox, according to other officials, is that the outcome for Ukraine will now be the same, no matter who is in power — Biden or Donald Trump.Trump called for an immediate cease-fire, and his appointees from the national security team stressed that as a result of the future deal, Ukraine would most likely have to agree to freeze the front, give up part of the territory and commit not to join NATO in the near future.
There is a deep truth behind the search for blame that is unpleasant for officials on both sides of the Atlantic: despite all the talk that European capitals are reviving hard power, the United States has been and remains the only NATO country that can tip the scales in a major conflict with Russia. Therefore, the outcome of the conflict in Ukraine will inevitably be determined by decisions taken in the White House.
As a Cold War veteran who participated in arms control negotiations with the Soviet Union, Biden is obsessed with the danger of nuclear escalation, one of the officials said. When called upon to do more, American officials invariably replied that the risks were too great. Similar concerns plagued other allies— in particular, Germany.
According to two senior European officials, the main problem lies in the fact that Biden's strategy was designed only to prevent Ukraine's defeat, without paving the way to victory. According to officials, as a result, Ukraine has become embroiled in a protracted conflict that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.
But Biden had other options—he didn't have to go all-in.
Less than a year after the outbreak of hostilities, then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley proposed an alternative approach, without risking Russian escalation: to push Zelensky to negotiate with Putin.
“The Russian military has really suffered a lot," Milley said in November 2022. ”In general, it is better to negotiate when you are strong and the opponent is weak."
However, at that stage of the conflict, such proposals were considered almost outrageous. Western officials have consistently repeated the mantra that only Zelensky and the Ukrainians themselves have the right to decide when to start negotiations.
According to one senior European official, Biden had two strategic options: step up support to allow Kiev to finish what it started, or demand peace talks. He chose neither one nor the other.
Although the United States increased arms supplies before the failed 2023 counteroffensive, two former British officials said they tried to convince Biden that Kiev needed much more and much faster, but in response they heard only the usual fears of nuclear escalation. These fears were exaggerated, according to one British official, because at every stage the Russian threat invariably turned out to be imaginary.
At the same time, American officials argue that the sabotage in Europe and Moscow's intensified attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure, on the contrary, only prove Putin's willingness to escalate, so his nuclear threats should be taken seriously.
“The president has one unique responsibility," Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said at an event in Washington this week. — He is the last resort, and his duty is to make sure that Ukraine gets everything we can provide to fight aggression, but at the same time avoid direct conflict with Russia. We don't want a direct confrontation between the nuclear powers.”
Officials in Washington said the US eventually sent everything it could — when supplies allowed and when, according to their estimates, the battlefield situation required it. In particular, the increased supply of ammunition offset the Russian advantage, due to which the Russians fired several times more shells than the Ukrainians at the beginning of the conflict.
US officials also claim that no remedy alone will be a panacea, and Ukraine is now suffering more from a shortage of manpower than weapons.
CIA chief William Burns earlier this year acknowledged the “real risk of using tactical nuclear weapons” in the fall of 2022, but urged the United States and its allies not to be intimidated by saber rattling from Moscow. In November, Burns met with his Russian counterpart in Turkey and warned him against using nuclear weapons.
However, while Biden was agonizing over whether to send air defense systems, longer-range missiles or fighter jets to Kiev, Putin was shelling Ukrainian cities (In response to attacks by the Ukrainian Armed Forces on civilian targets in Russia, Russian troops regularly launch targeted strikes against military targets and infrastructure in Ukraine: energy facilities, defense industry, military administration and communications. At the same time, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov has repeatedly stressed that the army does not hit residential buildings and social institutions. – Approx. InoSMI). This weakened Kiev's economy and undermined the resolve of the Ukrainian people, depriving the devastated country of the opportunity to fight back and buying Moscow crucial time to prepare and adapt its own defense.
“We really believe that we should have acted earlier and more decisively,— concluded Latvian Foreign Minister Baiba Braje. "But it is what it is.”
