The US neocons and their likeminded NATO allies have long been apparently seeking to knock Russia out of the political arena before trying to crack down on China in a bid to preserve the US dominance, retired US Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski believes.
"I think that the US officials and advisors (along with those in NATO) believe that they must be able to exploit Russian resources prior to any direct confrontation with China," Kwiatkowski, who is also a former analyst for the US Department of Defense, told Sputnik. "The neoconservative ideology that over half of Congress embraces, and that the US defense and security complex embraces, envisions and demands a unipolar globe, with the US and its debt-funded governmental system, at the top. For them, this is an existential issue, albeit most Americans don't see it that way."
It seems that Ukraine appeared a convenient candidate for the role of a "hammer" against Russia.
Since When Has Ukraine Received Western Military Assistance?
Ukraine has been a leading recipient of Western military supplies since the early 1990s when the country gained independence, with the US spearheading the initiative. In the first ten years after independence, Ukraine received almost $2.6 billion in assistance from the US. Until 2014, Ukraine had been receiving an estimated $105 million per annum, including foreign military financing.
NATO’s North Atlantic Cooperation Council embraced Ukraine as a "partner country" in 1991 and included it in the Partnership for Peace program in 1994. Washington's NATO ally, the UK, played an important role in the effort, holding joint military exercises with the Ukrainians, as well as providing training and funding to the nation's armed forces.
Thus, the first joint Ukrainian-British military exercises "Cossack steppe" were held in the second half of the 1990s as part of NATO's Partnership for Peace program. The NATO-Ukraine Commission was established in 1997 with the aim of developing the relationship between the nation and the bloc and directing cooperative activities.
UK Military Assistance to Ukraine: 2009-2014
As per UK government documents, the Ministry of Defense spent approximately £3.9 million supporting Ukraine through the Defense Assistance Fund and the Conflict Pool between 2009 and 2014.
Many of the activities funded through these mechanisms supported "command, control and communications capabilities (C3)." In particular, the UK held joint exercises with the Ukrainian military, provided military education to the nation's specialists, and "contributions to NATO coordinated activities." Both UK civilian and military personnel had been deployed to Ukraine during that period of time while Ukrainian personnel were sent to the UK.
NATO's Enhanced Military Assistance to Ukraine: 2014-2021
Following the illegitimate coup d'etat in Kiev in February 2014, the West stepped up military assistance to the new Ukrainian authorities.
Between 2014 and 2021, the United States provided over $2.5 billion in military assistance to Ukraine, which included the provision of trainers, selected weaponry systems (such as counter-mortar radars), and Javelin anti-tank missiles.
The boost in military assistance was justified by NATO member states by the alleged "Russian invasion" in Donbass. However, it is well documented that Donbass declared independence in response to the illegitimate coup d'etat in Kiev fomented with the assistance of nationalist and neo-Nazi paramilitary groups and subsequent Russophobic policies of the new government. The Donbass breakaway Donetsk and Lugansk Republics started largely forming militias after the interim Kiev government kicked off what it called "anti-terrorist" operations (ATO) against the region.
"Kiev had been on the offensive with the Donbass with Western support, for a number of years, even before 2014, and this is well documented," explained Kwiatkowski. "Other Eastern and Southern European countries had been 'encouraged' by Western powers, as we saw with Yugoslavia, to break up into smaller national and ethno-cultural countries, and the peaceful divide between the Czech Republic and Slovakia was also allowed and supported. This is primarily because the newly smaller countries added potential members to NATO and the EU – all controlled and controllable by the US-EU elites."
Moscow came up with the idea of the Minsk Agreements to stop hostilities in Eastern Ukraine. Russia, France and Germany played the role of guarantors of the accords. Nonetheless, as ex-German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former French President François Hollande admitted last year, the Minsk agreements were signed by Western powers to buy time in order to bolster the Ukrainian military capacity.
"In the case of the political separation desired by the Donbass, and the Minsk agreements that were designed to allow that autonomy, the Russian-speaking East, if autonomous, would not have chosen to be a part of the NATO borg," said the former Pentagon analyst. "Hence, that independence would not be allowed. Yes, NATO and the US supported such an offensive, and were preparing for it actively, as comments from many US and European officials and diplomats have confirmed. Assistant US Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and former German Chancellor Angela Merkel have publicly confirmed this, as have many others."
Ukraine Extensive Training and Naval Provocations
US allies jumped on the bandwagon, forwarding their military assistance to Ukraine through the NATO-Ukraine Commission, and through initiatives such as the US/Canada/UK/Ukraine Joint Commission for Defense Reform and Security Cooperation which was established in July 2014.
In particular, Britain kicked off and then expanded Operation Orbital, envisaging extensive training of the Ukrainian military including combat actions in urban environments. These activities included:
· medical, infantry and survival skills training;
· countering improvised explosive devices;
· training for defensive operations in an urban environment;
· operational planning;
· engineering;
· countering attacks from snipers, armored vehicles and mortars.
It meant that those Ukrainian soldiers that had undergone training under the program would pass on their knowledge and techniques to their military peers. Britons also expanded the scope of the training package to embrace all branches of Ukraine’s Armed Forces.
In June 2020, Ukraine was offered Enhanced Opportunity Partner status with NATO which provided Ukraine with preferential access to NATO’s exercises, training and exchange of information and situational awareness. The status envisaged increasing interoperability between Ukraine and NATO member states. In September 2020, Ukraine hosted the Exercise Joint Endeavour with British, US and Canadian troops, held within the framework of Ukraine's new enhanced NATO status.
In June 2021, the UK, Ukraine and industry signed a Memorandum of Implementation to a new Naval Capabilities Enhancement Program (NCEP). The program in particular included:
· Ukraine's acquisition of two refurbished Royal Navy Sandown-class minehunters;
· the sale and integration of missiles on new and in-service Ukrainian Navy patrol and airborne platforms, including a training and engineering support package;
· The UK's assistance in building new naval bases in the Black and Azov Seas;
· the development and joint production of eight fast missile warships;
· The participation in the Ukrainian project to deliver a modern frigate capability.
The same month, the UK Carrier Strike Group led by HMS Defender was deployed in the Black Sea "in a show of solidarity with Ukraine" and illegally entered Russian waters off Crimea and proceeded to sail through, prompting Russian warships and aircraft to surround the ship and fire warning shots in its vicinity to force it to leave. Even though the UK initially denied that it resorted to deliberate provocations, leaked British government documents proved otherwise.
Russia's Draft Security Agreements
Russia has repeatedly raised the red flag over the NATO-Ukraine rapprochement and the transatlantic bloc's enlargement. In accordance with its Declaration of State Sovereignty (July 16, 1990) Ukraine pledged to permanently remain a neutral country. In addition, in the early 1990s, Western powers asserted to Moscow that NATO wouldn't expand towards Russia. At the same time, the US and its allies refused to consider Russia's bid to join NATO while encouraging former Soviet Republics and Warsaw Pact member states to join.
Russia outlined its longstanding concerns with regard to Ukraine's military buildup on its doorstep and NATO's expansion in draft security agreements which were handed over to the US and NATO in December 2021.
The agreement particularly sought guarantees of NATO's non-enlargement and non-admission of Ukraine to the bloc. The US and NATO rejected the major provisions of the agreement leading to Russia's special military operation aimed at de-militarizing and de-Nazifying Ukraine in February 2022.
Ukraine Conflict is US/NATO Proxy War Against Russia
Even though in March 2022, Ukraine and Russia struck a preliminary deal in Istanbul to stop hostilities, the US and the UK openly opposed the agreement, pledging more weapons to Kiev and declaring the goal of bleeding Russia white.
"The US is waging a proxy war, because that is what the US has been waging against various named enemies, for the past 70 years, and it is how we are organized to fight," said Kwiatkowski. "It is an open secret that the Pentagon, even with close to a trillion dollar budget, does not and, at this point, cannot defend US territory. The US elites and the US defense establishment self-perpetuation is wholly disconnected from the people here who pay its bills. Poor and non-strategic US leadership placed the US in a lose-lose situation."
According to the US military expert, three problems have emerged in the result of Washington's misreading of the Russia and Ukraine conflict:
· First, that intent of weakening and isolating Russia did not play out "as it must have done in Jake Sullivan's brainstorming sessions."
· Second, the supplies have illustrated a variety of strategic weaknesses in US and NATO defense industrial production, where we see Joe Biden actually stating the obvious that the "US is out of ammunition."
· Third, taking the Ukraine-Russia destruction project on at a time when the US is experiencing financial weakness, with very limited reserves of gold, guns and "war spirit" demonstrates that the "war planning" of the White House and Pentagon has been done in a vacuum, and under false assumptions.
As per Kwiatkowski, peace is possible but it may require a difficult re-evaluation of the US role in the world while neocons and war profiteers do not accept this re-evaluation.
"Their ideology is mated to unipolar US power," the US military veteran said. "I suspect some leaders in the West are beginning to understand that there is a way to peace, and it starts with acceptance of the truth of all sides, and negotiations based on that truth. Imagine a sane US government, a concerned NATO, a true patriot of Ukraine in Kiev, and the Russians all speaking honestly. As Trump stated months ago, this war could be ended in one day."