Russian military equipment destroyed during the invasion of Ukraine (Video screenshot)
[Editor's note: This story originally was published by Real Clear Politics.]
By Philip Wegmann
Real Clear Politics
For once, misinformation, or at least the existence of it, was good news.
An unnamed official leaked the findings of a recently declassified U.S. intelligence report to the Associated Press Wednesday that concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin has been misinformed about his military’s poor performance. His advisors, according to the intel, had been too afraid to tell him the truth. Putin now knows he has been fed bad information, and there is growing distrust between the strongman and his military.
All of it was further confirmation that the land war isn’t going well for Moscow, and that Ukraine has managed to blunt the Russian offensive, reducing it in many parts of the country to a bloody stalemate. But is the fact that things are going so poorly for Russia evidence that Ukraine might win?
The White House will not say. And it remains unclear whether President Biden believes Ukraine can achieve a military victory five weeks after Russian tanks rolled across the border – only for many of them to be blasted to pieces with weapons stamped “USA.”
Jake Sullivan sidestepped the question last week when first asked by RealClearPolitics. “What I said was that Russia is never going to take Ukraine away from the Ukrainian people,” Biden’s national security advisor said, pivoting to address the situation in terms of principle, not tactics. Russia, Sullivan said, “is never going to be able to subjugate the Ukrainian people.”
As the United States ships billions in military aid to Ukraine then, it is unclear if the president believes Ukrainian defenders can use them to successfully expel Russia from its borders.
Biden isn’t afraid of provoking Putin. He made that clear Monday after previously saying that the Russian leader must not be allowed to stay in power, telling reporters “I don’t care what he thinks.” So, is the White House remaining mum about Ukrainian chances because they don’t have a clear definition of what victory ought to look like in a quickly developing war?
“I think what's important here is our actions,” Kate Bedingfield told RCP.
“We've provided the weapons to Ukraine. We continue to support Ukraine. We continue to do everything in our power to ensure that they have what they need,” added the White House communications director.
Bedingfield concluded that there should not be “any question” about the fact that Biden “is doing everything in his power to support Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression.”
And the president has done a lot. Before the invasion, the White House sent over $650 million in military equipment. After Russian troops crossed the Ukrainian border, Biden sent $135 billion worth of weapons and munition. Perhaps most significant: the thousands of Javelin missiles that have left Russian tanks smoldering, or the Stinger missiles that have downed Russian jets and helicopters. Biden has stocked the Ukrainian armory with everything from cutting edge equipment like unmanned drones to more conventional weapons like grenade launchers, machine guns, and even shotguns.
Toward what ultimate end though? RCP tried unsuccessfully to put that question to Bedingfield Wednesday during the press briefing, before the White House communications director moved on to another reporter.
Ukraine has already put U.S. military hardware to use, forcing the Kremlin to shift its invasion strategy. It was thought that Russia would seize the capitol of Kyiv, but when that effort failed, tactics shifted. According to the Wall Street Journal, U.S. officials now believe Putin will seek to use what territory he has seized as leverage to force Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to accept neutrality between Russia and the West.
Biden spoke with the Ukrainian president for 55 minutes on Wednesday. It was the first time the White House had disclosed a conversation between the two men since Biden blocked the sale of Polish fighter jets to the beleaguered nation earlier this month. According to a readout of the call, “the leaders discussed how the United States is working around the clock to fulfill the main security assistance requests by Ukraine.” And there was more aid incoming. The White House announced that the president intends to send an additional $500 million in direct budgetary aid.
Afterward, Zelenskyy said in a statement on Twitter that he gave Biden a report about “the situation on the battlefield and at the negotiating table,” and the two discussed “specific defensive support, a new package of enhanced sanctions, macro-financial and humanitarian aid.”
While Biden regularly receives updates about what occurs on the ground from his own intelligence team and from Ukrainian allies, the president has not spoken in specific terms about how he hopes the war will come to an end. Zelenskyy said Monday that he would be willing to declare neutrality in negotiations with Russia in exchange for peace “without delay.”
Biden, meanwhile, has opted to talk about the conflict in more principled, high-minded terms without offering specifics. The president declared in Poland that the West was once again engaged “in the great battle for freedom: a battle between democracy and autocracy, between liberty and repression, between a rules-based order and one governed by brute force.”
“We need to be clear-eyed,” he said in symbolic terms. “This battle will not be won in days or months either. We need to steel ourselves for the long fight ahead.” He gave no specifics.
[Editor's note: This story originally was published by Real Clear Politics.]
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