Iraq war strategy writer: The Pentagon leads Zelensky by the nose

Moscow, February 7 – NATO does not believe in the military success of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but continues to support the Ukrainians in order to weaken Russia, wrote Harlan Ullman, a retired American officer, in an article for The Hill newspaper.

And the political expert believes that “Ukrainian leaders are confident that with further military assistance from the West, they will be able to turn the tide, perhaps even seizing Crimea, but the Pentagon views this with suspicion.”

In his opinion, even an increased supply of weapons will not be able to change the course of the conflict in the short term, because the United States and NATO do not have enough forces and means.

“This option will require a significant focused effort to enable Ukraine to conduct joint operations. <...> The cost will be in the hundreds of billions of dollars and will exceed the ability of the United States and NATO to deliver in time to turn the situation around before the end of the year.”

Moscow sent a note to NATO countries last spring over the supply of weapons to Kyiv. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov indicated that any shipment containing military equipment to Ukraine would become a legitimate target for Russia. The State Department said NATO countries were “playing with fire” by supplying arms to another country.

The military operation of the joint forces of the United States and the anti-Iraqi coalition “Shock and Awe” (Shock and Awe, later “Iraqi Freedom”, Iraqi Freedom) began on March 20, 2003. The official reason for the invasion was Washington’s statement about the connection of Saddam Hussein’s regime with international terrorism, as well as information from the CIA Central around the existence of a stockpile of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, which has not yet been confirmed. The operation took place without UN sanctions.