The United States is blatantly lying about the botched Ukrainian counteroffensive, former CIA analyst Larry Johnson said in an interview with Judge Andrew Napolitano on his Judging Freedom podcast.
“Tony, look at a map,” and just look at the progress that “has not been made by Ukraine,” said the retired CIA intelligence officer and State Department official, as he commented on recent remarks made by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Kiev.
During his unannounced visit to the Ukrainian capital, Blinken, standing alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, touted that the Ukrainian military had made “real progress” in its counteroffensive in the “last few weeks.” The Ukrainian president’s assessment of the battlefront developments “matches our own,” continued Blinken, who went over to Kiev to pledge a new aid package for Ukraine worth over $1 billion.
In fact, “Russia has been steadily pushing to the [west],” Johnson said, pointing out that the battle of Artemovsk was the “last big conflict” on the battlefront that Ukraine’s military was engaged in.
“They [the US] don’t understand Russian defensive tactics,” Johnson emphasized.
In May 2023, the Russian military liberated Artemovsk (also known as Bakhmut), a Donbass city reduced to ruins in over eight months of brutal house-to-house fighting. The Artemovsk operation destroyed tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops and foreign mercenaries, while Russia built up its reserves and prepared defenses in Donbass, Zaporozhye, and Kherson for Kiev’s much-heralded summer offensive
“Americans have been had,” added Ray McGovern, a former top US intel analyst, who also joined the Judging Freedom podcast. He pointed out that, “Billions of money had gone to Ukraine, with a lot of it syphoned off.” He told the host that America was “losing” in the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.
Nevertheless, senior-level members of the US intelligence community continue “to delude themselves, their colleagues, the press, and the public," regarding the actual developments on the ground, specified Larry Johnson. These officials refused to wake up to the reality that Ukraine was experiencing “shortage of ammunition, shortage of manpower, trouble recruiting people,” etc.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken earlier made a surprise visit to Kiev, meeting with top Ukrainian officials, including President Volodymyr Zelensky and Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. He unveiled an upcoming new aid package to Ukraine, which includes $175 million for weaponry. However, the pledge comes as none of the NATO-gifted arms have helped turn the tide of Ukraine's flagging counteroffensive. Antony Blinken's remarks about the success of the Ukrainian counteroffensive were dismissed as nothing but false claims by Vladimir Rogov, a senior official of the Zaporozhye regional administration
"The Kiev regime, despite their huge losses, has been trying to conduct the so-called counter-offensive for the third month already. The armed forces of Ukraine did not achieve their goals on any part of the front line," Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu told senior defense officials, adding that Russian troops were active "along the entire line of contact."
Responding to Washington's newly-announced military package for Kiev, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on September 6 that the United States intended to continue backing the regime down to the last Ukrainian regardless of the cost. Peskov told reporters that this assistance would not be able to affect the course of the special military operation.