US-backed roll of the dice leaves Ukraine in worse crisis, by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies

In effect, the U.S. roll of the dice was a U.S. gamble with Ukrainian lives. From Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies at nationofchange.org:

The U.S. decision to reject peace negotiations and prolong the war have led to a brutal war of attrition that is gradually destroying Ukraine.

President Biden wrote in the New York Times in June 2022 that the United States was arming Ukraine to “fight on the battlefield and be in the strongest possible position at the negotiating table.” 

Ukraine’s fall 2022 counteroffensive left it in a stronger position, yet Biden and his NATO allies still chose the battlefield over the negotiating table. Now the failure of Ukraine’s long-delayed “Spring Counteroffensive” has left Ukraine in a weaker position, both on the battlefield and at the still empty negotiating table.

So, based on Biden’s own definition of U.S. war aims, his policy is failing, and it is hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers, not Americans, who are paying the price, with their limbs and their lives. 

But this result was not unexpected. It was predicted in leaked Pentagon documents that were widely published in April, and in President Zelenskyy’s postponement of the offensive in May to avoid what he called “unacceptable” losses. 

The delay allowed more Ukrainian troops to complete NATO training on Western tanks and armored vehicles, but it also gave Russia more time to reinforce its anti-tank defenses and prepare lethal kill-zones along the 700-mile front line.

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