Arming of Ukraine with American weapons won’t change the situation radically

By Vestnik Kavkaza

Today’s summit of the Normandy Quartet on a settlement of the Ukrainian crisis will take place against the background of discussions in Washington about whether the US should supply Kiev with lethal arms. A group of congressmen have prepared another draft on military aid to Ukraine. It requires the allocation of $1 billion to supplies of lethal arms, military vehicles and equipment till September 2017. According to the American mass media, it includes anti-armor systems and anti-missile radars. A part of the sum will be spent on training Ukrainian soldiers.

Konstantin Sivkov, the president of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems, thinks that a settlement of the conflict in Ukraine by peaceful, diplomatic means is impossible: “It will be a result of a military victory only. Diplomatic talks should be started only when the victory of one side and the inability of another side to continue military activities are obvious. The chances that Ukraine will be defeated in the war are great. In Ukraine, socio-political tensions have reached a critical level. We all remember the siege of the presidential administration, protests against mobilization; the local population runs away from mobilization. I should say that if Ukraine cannot recruit 62 thousand people in a country with 45 million residents, it means one thing only – complete paralysis of the mobilization system and people’s unwillingness to fight or participate in the war. It is impossible to carry out military activities under such conditions.”

According to Sivkov, the economic crisis will encourage strengthening of social protests. Thus, Kiev will probably lose its ability to provide military activities, not for military strategic reasons, but for political and economic reasons.

The military expert is sure that the southeast of Ukraine has more chances to win the war, considering their high moral spirit and high military skills of their commanders: “Commanders of self-defense units, troops of the DPR and LPR demonstrate a higher level of training and professionalism than their opponents in the troops of the ATO. The commanders of the DPR and LPR have at least two successful attacking operations, successful defense operations, successful operations on withdrawal of troops from entrapments. At the same time, the commanders of the ATO have no successful cases of withdrawing their troops from entrapments. They were left there.”

Sivkov calls supplies of weapons “involvement of the US in the war.” He notes that the military vehicles differ from the vehicles produced in the Soviet Union, which belong to Ukraine: “Soldiers will have to be trained for a long time. The Kiev government has no time. Even if soldiers are trained and are able to carry out military activities with the foreign vehicles, they should have high morale spirit and a high level of professionalism. The vehicles cannot be given to militants of the Right Sector, who have no special education to use them, to representatives of the National Guard, who are not professionals either. While the soldiers, officers who stay in the Ukrainian Armed Forces and are professional enough will be unlikely to fight. Thus, the military vehicles will either be destroyed or captured by the DPR and LPR. So, the arming of Ukraine with American weapons won’t change the situation radically. They will only prolong the conflict and make it more murderous.”