At the NATO summit in Vilnius earlier this week, the US and its allies made long-term security commitments to Ukraine while easing alliance admission requirements. However, Kiev was disappointed in not getting an invitation to join NATO as soon as possible, with US President Joe Biden even saying membership is off the table for Ukraine while the conflict with Russia lasts.
"NATO summit proved what was known anyway. The collective West under US leadership wants to destroy Russia without going to war directly but by using Ukrainians as cannon fodder," American University in Moscow President Edward Lozansky told Sputnik. "Thus we are witnessing a crime that supersedes the atrocities in Vietnam and the Middle East."
However, in previous proxy fights, he added, the US could at least use countering communism or terror as a pretext.
"Here we see a policy of provoking, funding, and prolonging the war between the two Christian nations that lived together for over three centuries and who were bounded by close historical, religious, economic, cultural, and family ties under the false flag of preserving a non-existing democracy in the most corrupted state to preserve the geopolitical advantage of the hegemon and its willing vassals," Lozansky said.
University of Louvain Professor of Political Philosophy Jean Bricmont believes by only pledging more security assistance, NATO allies have made it obvious they do not want to spark a direct war with Russia, which is not good news for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
"The mere sending of weapons does not seem to tilt the balance in his favor," Bricmont suggested.
Meanwhile, Bricmont added, developments on the ground in Ukraine and inside Russia have not gone according to plan for the United States, especially as the hoped-for collapse of the Russian economy has not happened and Ukraine's counteroffensive is failing.
"The whole thing has become a very cynical game: using Ukrainians as much and as long as possible in that war, but without any real plan of success," Bricmont told Sputnik. "This is likely to end like Vietnam or Afghanistan, but the Americans cannot admit it and cut their losses. So, Ukrainians and Russians will continue to die needlessly."
Lozansky suggested there were other motives driving the White House's Ukraine policy besides simply trying to counter Russia.
"Of course, there was an additional incentive to make money for the military-industrial complex, and, as it turns out, to enrich the Biden family," Lozansky said.
Krainer Analytics Founder Alex Krainer, a Europe-based financial analyst, said while the war may have filled the US defense industry's pockets, it also undermined many perceptions of its strengths and American's military prowess.
"Outside this event, war in Ukraine has also taken the glitter off of western weapons and the military industrial complex. For a very high price, it produces inadequate quantities of shoddy goods," Krainer said.
"The whole thing has been outed as a con and a paper tiger."