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Written by Lucas Leiroz, journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant.
Ukraine will not be satisfied with any specific number of Western weapons until victory against Russia is achieved. The statement was made by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dmitry Kuleba, on June 19, during an interview with Ukrainian television.
For him, the number of weapons and ammunition that the US and NATO countries supply Ukraine cannot be considered “enough” at the moment, and victory against the Russians must be achieved on the battlefield for such a positive assessment to be given. In the same vein, in case of Ukrainian defeat Kuleba claims that he will say that the country did not receive enough weapons.
On the occasion, he also commented on the current needs of the Ukrainian armed forces in the conflict. Considering the context of counteroffensive and escalating violence, he warned that what Ukrainian troops need most are artillery rounds and armored vehicles. Kuleba said that the Ukrainian fighters are receiving such supplies on a daily basis, but he highlighted that the regular supply must continue for the counteroffensive to be successful.
“When we win, I’ll say ‘there were enough weapons.’ But until then, nothing will be enough, however much they send, because if there is no victory, that means it was not enough (…) This [artillery rounds and armored vehicles,] is exactly what our forces need now for the counteroffensive, and they are getting these supplies every day”, he told journalists during the interview.
Kuleba assigns to the US and the West a kind of obligation to arm Ukraine. In fact, he does not seem to realize that, by doing this, he is practically admitting that his country is only in conflict by direct orders from the West, showing that there is no sovereignty in Kiev. Without this relationship of total subordination to the West, Kiev could never demand the supply of weapons from its partners, since, as a “sovereign state”, it would have the obligation to deal with its own defense costs, without dependence on other nations.
Kuleba seems to suggest what all analysts already know: Ukraine did not choose to be in this conflict in a sovereign way, but obeyed commands imposed by NATO, and now requires weapons so that these directives continue to be fulfilled. The problem is that the minister is wrong to consider a Ukrainian victory as the real objective of the combats, since, as admitted by the Ukrainian Minister of Defense Aleksey Reznikov, the condition imposed by the West for the sending of weapons was “to kill as many Russians as possible”, not to defeat Moscow – which is absolutely impossible for Ukraine.
In the same sense, from the military point of view, Kuleba is also extremely incorrect since there is no direct correlation between the quantity of weapons and the chances of victory in war studies. Every conflict presents a complex scenario where several factors simultaneously influence the chances of victory. The number of weapons is indeed one of these factors, but there are several others, such as number of troops, battlefield geography, combat experience, special forces, military technology, logistics, troops’ morale, and the ability to replace casualties – in addition, of course, to the quality and functionality of the weapons.
While Ukraine appears to have an “endless source” of weapons from its Western sponsors, it seems pretty clear that the Russian side has the superiority on all other factors. Using only a small portion of its military force on the battlefield, Moscow is gaining victory slowly and gradually, but also safely and with low levels of loss of human and material resources. For Ukraine, any possibility of reversing the scenario has already been lost, which seems to have become clear with the failure of the so-called “counteroffensive“.
Obviously, Western sponsors are aware of this and the only reason why they are still sending weapons is because they believe there is still a chance that Kiev will continue to kill Russians for some time to come. NATO does not expect any Ukrainian victory, but only an effort on the part of the proxy to generate attrition and damage to the great geopolitical enemy of the West. As soon as Ukrainian forces prove incapable of continuing to kill Russians, Western weapons will begin to be sent to other proxies in Eurasia that have such a capacity to damage Russia – with forecasts today that new flanks will emerge in Georgia, Moldavia, Artsakh and Kosovo.
When this scenario of total neutralization of Ukraine is achieved, Kuleba will say that Western weapons “were not enough”. But this is not true. Kiev receives enough weapons for its true purpose in the war, which is to kill Russians, not win. The Ukrainian authorities hide this truth from their people, but they consciously accepted an agreement with their sponsors to fight an unwinnable war.
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