Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky is uneasy over the fact of the Russian air defenses successfully downing advanced missiles that the US delivers to Kiev, foreign policy expert and former Pentagon adviser Douglas Macgregor has told a YouTube channel.
“The Russian air defenses are superb, is the best word that I can come up with. There is no such thing as perfect integrated air defenses; something will always get through, but overwhelmingly, they manage to shoot down HIMARS [High Mobility Artillery Rocket System] and all sorts of missiles,” Macgregor said.
According to him, Russia downing HIMARS missiles prompted “the frustration that we saw in Mr. Zelensky,” who was “furious, angry, and distraught.”
“The losses inside his country are horrific; it’s only American cash that really sustains this Ukrainian state. It’s on life support and a humane thing would be to put an end to it and negotiate […],” Macgregor added, in an apparent reference to the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF)’s massive death toll.
The remarks followed the ex-Pentagon adviser’s interview with another YouTube channel, in which he referred to Russia-related mistakes the US made before getting involved in the Ukraine conflict.
“[…] They [in Washington] were wrong about Russia. They did not understand what were they dealing with. They thought that Russia was still the backward, confused, chaotic state that it was in the 1990s. They missed entirely all of the things that had been done in the last twenty years by [Russian President] Vladimir Putin and his supporters. I'm not here to say that everything that they've done is perfect or has worked brilliantly, but it very definitely recovered Russia from the ash-heap of history. At the same time, we did not understand that Russians had maintained this large scientific and industrial base to produce and manufacture military equipment. We did not understand that the Russian population actually supports its government,” Macgregor underscored.
He spoke after the Russian Defense Ministry said last week that the country’s air defense systems had intercepted 15 HIMARS missiles, tactical HARM anti-radiation rockets, and one Storm Shadow cruise missile. The interception was the latest in a series over the past several months.
The developments come amid the UAF’s unsuccessful attempts to re-launch their counteroffensive, which kicked off in early June and has stalled since then.
Speaking at the Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg earlier this week, President Vladimir Putin spoke about the failure of Ukraine’s alleged second stage of the counteroffensive.
"The enemy was not successful in all directions of the firefight. All [fresh]counteroffensive attempts have been stopped, and the enemy has been pushed back with heavy losses," the Russian president underlined.
HIMARS, HARM and Storm Shadow missiles have been supplied to Ukraine as part of the US and its allies’ military aid to Kiev, which increased after the beginning of the Russian special military operation. Moscow has repeatedly warned that the West arming Kiev adds to prolonging the Ukraine conflict and is tantamount to a direct involvement in the standoff.