During the first year of the war in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin repeatedly threatened the West with nuclear weapons. Even though Kiev convinced its allies that it was a bluff, the blackmail worked, the Wall Street Journal’s chief foreign affairs correspondent, Yaroslav Trofimov, writes in his book. The journalist reports that the United States several times did not dare to supply Ukraine with weapons that could radically change the course of the conflict.
Russian President Vladimir Putin /GAVRIIL GRIGOROV / SPUTNIK / KREMLIN POOL /PAP/EPA
Launching the invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin warned the West against interfering in the conflict and threatened unpredictable consequences if it was not listened to. Furthermore, he has threatened nuclear weapons even in peacetime. In 2018 he declared that Russia was ready to use it, albeit in accordance with doctrine, in response to the actions of a potential aggressor.
The aggressor should know that he cannot avoid retaliation. In any case he will be destroyed. We will become victims of aggression and as martyrs we will go to heaven and they will simply die. Because they won’t even have time to show remorse, the Russian leader said then.
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“From the first days of the full-scale war in Ukraine, the main priority of the US administration has been not to cross the ‘red lines’ set by the Kremlin and not to provoke a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO, especially a nuclear one,” writes Yaroslav Trofimov in his book, passages of which were quoted by the American newspaper “Washington Post”. The journalist referred to Ukrainian and American politicians, as well as military and intelligence officers.
The United States, knowing that it intended to physically eliminate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and believing that the Ukrainian army would not survive long on the battlefield, transferred only 90 Javelin anti-tank guided missiles to Kiev at the beginning of the conflict. Why? “Partly because the Ukrainians didn’t share their plans with us, and what was shared was military disinformation,” a senior Pentagon official later told a reporter.
The Americans and their allies did not transfer heavy weapons to the Ukrainians for a long time, and when they made such decisions, they did so slowly. Yaroslav Trofimov notes that for this reason Kiev did not receive Western weapons exactly when they could have played a decisive role in the conflict, that is, in 2022.
The Wall Street Journal’s chief foreign affairs correspondent writes in his book that in July 2022 he met with Volodymyr Zelensky. The Ukrainian president was angry at Washington’s delays and considered fears of an escalation of the conflict unfounded. However, the United States continued to take Russia’s nuclear threats seriously.
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In the summer of 2022, the Ukrainians, Americans and British developed a counteroffensive plan. Volodymyr Zelensky and Supreme Commander of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Valery Zaluzhny insisted on carrying out operations in Zaporizhia Oblast; they wanted to reach the Sea of Azov and cut the “land corridor” to the Crimea, through which the Russians supply their troops. At that time the Kremlin had only 100,000 in Ukraine. soldiers. However, the Americans believed that the armed forces did not have enough trained soldiers for such a large-scale operation and insisted on the liberation of Kherson.
When Ukrainian forces began liberating Kharkiv Oblast in the country’s northeast in September 2022, Vladimir Putin announced a general mobilization, organized referendums on illegal annexation in partially occupied oblasts, and warned again that if territorial integrity of the “new Russia” had been compromised and threatened, it would use nuclear weapons. This is not a bluff, he said then.
The Ukrainians did not allow themselves to be provoked and continued their counter-offensive, eventually liberating Kherson. Yaroslav Trofimov writes that in Washington the fear that the conflict would turn into a nuclear war then reached its highest level.
“In late November 2022, the Ukrainian counteroffensive began to lose momentum, among other things, due to the lack of supplies of artillery shells and the refusal of the United States and its allies to supply Western tanks and armored vehicles” , said the journalist. he writes in his book.
The Russians made great use of it. The then commander of Russian troops in Ukraine, General Sergei Surowikin, began the construction of advanced defensive fortifications, 300,000 mobilized Russians were incorporated into the army, increasing its potential, and Moscow itself transitioned to a war economy. The opportunity to defeat the Kremlin was wasted.
In 2023, the Ukrainians launched another counteroffensive in the south of the country, with the support of Western weapons. Despite this, the resistance of the Russian forces was not overcome.
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2024-01-10 12:53:57
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