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2023-02-21 Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
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Biden promised Ukraine 'hard days, weeks and years'
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Alena Zadorozhnaya, Daria Volkova, Evgeny Pozdnyakov
[NewsFrontInfo] There are more and more details about the arrival of Joe Biden in Kyiv. The visit itself, as it turned out, was agreed in advance with Moscow as part of the “deconflict”.
At the same time, the organization of the trip was so secret that the journalists had to hand over their phones. In addition, Biden announced several things in Kyiv that caused surprise in the expert community. Among them is a fantastic number of tanks promised by the Armed Forces of Ukraine
The unexpected arrival of Joe Biden in Kyiv is being actively discussed in the Western media. According to Politico, the initial goal of the US leader was to visit Poland, where he planned to meet with Andrzej Duda. Moreover, White House staff allegedly dissuaded Biden from leaving for Kyiv, but he insisted on his own, writes Time.
It is noteworthy that Biden's entry into the territory of Ukraine was coordinated with Moscow. According to the Associated Press, U.S. and Russian officials discussed securing "deconflict" "to avoid any miscalculations that could lead to direct conflict between the two nuclear powers."
Later, this information was confirmed by National Security Adviser to the US President Jake Sullivan. “We notified Russia that President Biden will leave for Kyiv a few hours before departure in order to avoid a conflict situation,” he said.
Also, Biden's visit to Kyiv highlighted the White House's work with journalists. Against all claims of freedom of speech and information, the Biden administration has required journalists to hand over their phones and maintain secrecy, according to the New York Times. In addition, because of Biden, the security forces blocked most of the center of Kyiv.
Biden's tour began with St. Michael's Cathedral. And it is no coincidence. During the Polish rule over Kiev, the cathedral was given to the Uniates. Later, when the ancient capital returned to Russian control, the cathedral was reconstructed in the Baroque style and became one of Kyiv's hallmarks. In the Soviet period, Mikhailovsky Golden-domed was demolished. His frescoes and other treasures, which constituted the heritage of the cathedral, "dispersed" to the museums of Kyiv, Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Over time, the cathedral was restored, but handed over to schismatics from the "Kyiv Patriarchate". Now the territory of the cathedral, together with the central complex of buildings, is under the control of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, a schismatic organization created by the efforts of the United States and the Patriarchate of Constantinople.
Biden also visited a memorial near the Maidan and the Mariinsky Palace - this is another hallmark of Kyiv. The palace was built under Empress Elizabeth Petrovna in 1744. The author of the project was the legendary architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli. Later, the Mariinsky Palace was considered a residence for members of the imperial family visiting Kyiv until 1917.
As a result of the walks and negotiations, Biden promised Ukraine not only “hard days, weeks and years”, but also about 700 tanks, a thousand armored vehicles and a thousand artillery systems, more than 50 MLRS, two million shells and $500 million.
“Biden, apparently, decided to play it safe by talking about the difficult weeks and years that await Ukraine. He understands that the Ukrainian crisis may not be resolved before the end of his presidency. In addition, the US leader thus showed that he does not intend to bear any personal responsibility for what is happening in Ukraine, ”said Timofei Bordachev, Program Director of the Valdai Club.
“It is worth noting that Russia has repeatedly recognized the impossibility of a quick end to the conflict in Ukraine. True, Moscow and Washington have a completely different understanding of the goals and objectives of this process,” the interlocutor noted.
“In general, this visit became a kind of performance for Americans and Europeans. And the most interesting signal is that Biden's trip was coordinated with Russia. This shows a rather high degree of civility in our relations with Washington. Everyone understands that the presence of a culture of dialogue is always better than its absence,” Bordachev concluded.
Political scientist Dmitry Drobnitsky looks at the situation somewhat differently. According to him, "Biden tried to reduce the degree of concern among Europeans and Americans about the growing escalation of the Ukrainian conflict and the risk of a third world war." “If he was trying to cheer up the Ukrainians, he would say the phrase “victory is close.” But the opposite was said," Drobnitsky notes.
“In addition, words about difficult days, weeks and years were heard not only against Ukrainians, but also against US allies.
“It will take a long time to fight, democracy is expensive,” as Biden says. This is also a signal that the US president allegedly keeps his finger on the pulse, controls everything, and Ukraine remains in the center of attention of the Western world,” the expert explained.
“As for the signals to the Kremlin, they were not here. Perhaps they will be heard on Tuesday, when Biden makes a speech in Poland. However, I do not expect anything supernatural and interesting there, because the abstracts for his speech are prepared not by Jake Sullivan, but by Anthony Blinken and Victoria Nuland, ”concluded Drobnitsky.
At the same time, Biden's promise to transfer 700 tanks to Ukraine deserves special attention. “This is a loud statement, but even Western analysts did not understand why the US President suddenly announced such a figure. In recent weeks, the leaders of the NATO countries have called different numbers and different terms for the delivery of tanks, how many of them will eventually arrive in Ukraine is a mystery. Apparently, Biden said this as part of the start of his election campaign and for the sake of a red word, ”said military expert Mikhail Onufrienko.
Biden's numbers of military aid are huge, says Alexander Shurygin, a military expert. However, even the United States is not capable of making such large-scale deliveries in a short time, because it is completely unclear where the States are going to get, for example, 700 tanks, even taking into account those that are in Europe.
For example, the reopening of some of the 3,700 American Abrams vehicles and bringing them to combat readiness will take a long period of time. Therefore, we are probably talking about creating a delivery schedule: a certain number of vehicles will be delivered to the Armed Forces of Ukraine for at least a year. Work with the rest of the equipment will be carried out according to the same plan.
Shurygin suggests that one of the goals of Biden's visit is to instill self-confidence in Ukrainians. The figures announced by the President of the United States are in fact only a "decoding" of the Lend-Lease promised last fall.
But there is another version. Perhaps Biden once again misspoke and named the amount of equipment and ammunition that the West has already supplied and is currently supplying. That is, we are talking about the total figures for the year. Therefore, it is worth waiting for detailed comments from the American side.
From a V Kontakte post:
by Vladimir Saldo
First, he agreed with the Russian leadership that he would come by train and, accordingly, he knew that nothing threatened him, and the Russian leadership always keeps its word.
As a result, just like all the media controlled by America are trumpeting, I was not afraid and came! The main question is why?
There are still serious analysts in the "freedom-loving" Western democracy, they are well aware that the Anglo-Saxon song has been sung in Ukraine, and very soon Kyiv will return to where it has long wanted to. Historical justice will be restored, whose name is Kievan Rus.
More from regnum.ru:
"In the strictest secrecy." Why did Biden show up in Kyiv
by Mikhail Zakharov
Instead of the expected secret meeting between Biden and Zelensky on the Polish border, the world saw a sudden voyage of the American president to Kyiv. Behind the detective details and spectacular shots, the main thing is lost. As a result of personal contact between Biden and Zelensky, Ukraine received not the largest arms tranche, did not receive the expected fighter jets and long-range missiles. What then was the goal pursued by both sides?
Around 9 am on February 20, US President Joe Biden unexpectedly arrived in Kiev. According to The New York Times, the president left Washington unannounced after having dinner with wife Jill at a restaurant on Saturday. Around 8 a.m. (9 a.m. Moscow time), Biden arrived by train from Poland, CNN reported . The trip to Warsaw was announced in advance, for February 21. Now it has become clear that Biden will go to Poland from Ukraine.
The fact that someone is preparing an extraordinary visit to Ukraine was evidenced by the unprecedented activity of NATO aviation on the Ukrainian-Polish border and the air alert announced in Kyiv itself.
The owner of the White House was met by US Ambassador to Kiev Bridget Brink, and half an hour later, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky received Biden in the Mariinsky Palace in the center of Kiev . Previously, there were suggestions that a “secret” meeting between Biden and Zelensky would take place in Poland, but a “throw on Kyiv” was clearly not expected.
U.S. President Joe Biden's sudden and seemingly unannounced visit to Kyiv took about a week to prepare. This was reported by Politico , citing a source in the Ukrainian government. In Kyiv, "they have long asked" Biden to come for a visit.
The blitz voyage was prepared under the "strictest secrecy" through the communication channels of the head of the office of the President of Ukraine Andriy Yermak and the head of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry Dmitry Kuleba . The public part included filming at St. Michael's Cathedral (which had been previously taken from the canonical UOC) and a walk along Mikhailovskaya Square to the sound of air raid sirens.
The main bottom line is Biden's promise to provide Kyiv with a new half-billion dollar military aid package.
The US President spoke about the transfer of HIMARS MLRS ammunition to Kiev, Reuters reported . Earlier, the same agency reported: Washington agreed to send Ukraine GLSDB precision-guided missiles, which can hit targets at a distance of up to 150 km.
But it was the media effect that was paramount, which was prepared, staged and presented primarily for an intra-American audience, experts agree. Although, they note, the media effect for the enemy - Russia, for the allies - in Europe also took place.
WHY BIDEN NEEDED THE KYIV BLITZ
“What we have seen is very similar to the visit of the now former speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan," American expert Dmitry Drobnitsky told REGNUM.
"Biden’s visit to Kiev is a demonstration: we arrived in our warring city, to our client, to our colony, this is ours."
Political scientist and specialist in the USA Malek Dudakov gives another analogy. Even when only Biden's pre-announced visit to Poland was announced, the United States expected that the current head of the White House "would try to present himself as a wartime president, similar to his well-known Democratic predecessors - Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman," Dudakov said in an interview with REGNUM.
Truman, we recall, is associated not so much with the last months of World War II, but with the beginning of the Cold War - a confrontation that is often compared to the current confrontation between Russia and the United States.
Analysts agree that this is an important element in Biden's election campaign that has begun. The voyage to Eastern Europe is intended to be a continuation of the president's recent address to Congress. In Washington, he touched on the domestic American agenda, and is now formulating his foreign policy message, Dudakov said.
“For Biden, the main thing in this visit is the domestic political agenda, ” agrees political analyst Vladimir Kornilov. “In fact, this is such an announcement of his nomination for a second term after even the media affiliated with the Democratic Party began to write that it would be better for him not to be nominated, due to his age."
Actually, the announcement of a rather small military "tranche" for $500 million and the supply of artillery shells and ammunition for NIMARS did not require a show visit to Kyiv, Kornilov notes. But the main thing is the media effect for the American audience, the expert pointed out.
Secondly, the team of Democrats, having sent Biden to Kiev, also solves the foreign policy problem, political scientist Alexander Asafov points out .
“Neither the meeting at the Ramstein base, nor the Munich Conference, nor other anniversary events were enough to create a convincing picture of the support of Ukraine by the collective West,” Asafov told REGNUM.
"On the contrary, we heard the words that not a single foreign tank was found throughout Europe. We have heard about the fact that Ukraine can get modern aviation, but most likely it will be "someday never." Now the geopolitical opponent - Moscow - has also been shown support, and indecisive allies have been motivated.
Third, but not least, Asafov points out, Washington had to manually manage a number of key issues to continue dismantling the corrupt hierarchy of the Ukrainian government.
The Ukrainian military-political leadership, of course, received serious symbolic support, Kornilov notes.
“It is clear that this will be very actively involved and is already being used by Ukrainian propaganda, which is already spinning all sorts of videos and informational messages in the spirit of “the cardinal and the haberdasher are power!” the interlocutor pointed out.
Behind spectacular media statements and loud promises of help, the main thing may remain hidden - what kind of help Kyiv will receive from the American patron.
"AMERICA IS WITH US", BUT THE F-16 WILL HAVE TO WAIT
The US Congress agrees on the need to provide assistance to Ukraine, despite disagreements on other issues, Biden assured, quoted by CNN. The results of today's meeting with Biden "will be displayed on the battlefield," Zelensky said in turn.
At the same time, as TASS notes, Republican Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy warned: his fellow party members in Congress will not allow the allocation of unlimited and unjustified aid to Ukraine. In November, the Republicans prepared a resolution to control the spending of funds allocated by Congress to help Ukraine.
During Biden’s trips to Eastern Europe, “there will be some non-public agreements, for example, on the timing of the delivery of the same heavy equipment. There are big problems with this now, because their deliveries have been agreed, but the deadlines are shifting quite seriously," American expert Malek Dudakov told REGNUM . The London Times noted on February 19 that “less than a quarter of the planned tanks will arrive for the spring offensive in Ukraine,” 50 out of 320.
The Reuters publication noted: the States rejected Kyiv's requests for the supply of ATACMS missiles with a range of up to 300 km. The question of long-range systems seems to remain open.
Zelensky said that he had now discussed the issue of long-range weapons with Biden, Reuters also notes. But we are talking about "discussion", but not about the promise.
As recently as this Saturday, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at the Munich Security Conference called for a doubling of military aid to Ukraine, also declaring the need to supply Kiev with long-range artillery. As IA REGNUM pointed out , we are probably talking about the British counterparts of the American ATACMS.
But as a result of Biden's visit, Kyiv did not receive either American long-range missile and artillery systems, or - note - F-16 fighters.
In fact, Biden somewhat limited Kyiv's appetites, Kornilov believes. “He has actually said no to the fighter jets,” the source said. In any case , even the statements made by Rishi Sunak, who has already given the go-ahead for the supply of military aircraft, will not be the last word. It is already said that the transfer of aircraft will not be able to take place tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, and even this year.”
Therefore, Kornilov believes, Biden's upcoming trip to Poland on February 21 is unlikely to change anything in Washington's position regarding the transfer of F-16s or long-range artillery.
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