The Interview: Antony Blinken Insists He and Biden Made the Right Calls
You made two early strategic decisions on Ukraine. The first, because of that fear of direct conflict, was to restrict Ukraine’s use of American weapons within Russia. The second was to support Ukraine’s military offensive without a parallel diplomatic track to try and end the conflict. How do you look back on those decisions now? So first, if you look at the trajectory of the conflict, because we saw it coming, we were able to make sure that not only were we prepared and allies and partners were prepared, but that Ukraine was prepared. We made sure that well before the Russian aggression happened, starting in September and then again December, we quietly got a lot of weapons to Ukraine to make sure that they had in hand what they needed to defend themselves, things like Stingers, Javelins that were instrumental in preventing Russia from taking Kyiv, from rolling over the country, erasing it from the map, and indeed pushing the Russians back. But I think what’s so important to understand is at different points in time, people get focused on one weapon system or another. Is it an Abrams tank? Is it an F-16? What we’ve had to look at each and every time is not only should we give this to the Ukrainians but do they know how to use it? Can they maintain it? Is it part of a coherent plan? All of those things factored into the decisions we made on what to give them and when to give it.
Related:
TASS: US ‘quietly’ supplied weapons to Ukraine before Russia’s operation started, Blinken says
Ukraine began artillery strikes against the Donbas republics on February 16th, 2022.
“In other words, Ukraine began shelling the independent republics of Donetsk and Luhansk nine days before Russia announced its ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine.
“While the western corporate media remained completely silent, explosions documented by the OSCE increased from 76 on February 15th, to 316 on February 16th, to 654 on February 17th, and to 1,413 on February 18th.
[02-18-2022] Shelling in Donbass brings Europe to brink of war
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