War Dragging To Infinity, Ukraine Is Not Getting Lethal Weapons, Biden Irks On Zelensky's Demand

As per the latest updates, Russian troops are reaching Bakhmut which is situated in Donetsk region. Russia wants to take over the region of Donetsk and Luhansk together known as Donbas. Now, the war has been dragging on for almost a year.

This war is not just between Ukraine and Russia. It is actually between Russia and the collective West. Collective West includes the USA And nations from the European Union. Now, since the war has been dragging for a long time, different countries like the UK, Spain and USA are pledging to support Ukraine until the war continues.

On the other hand, Ukraine is gathering global support -

• Vogue magazine has shown Olena Zelensky on its cover page to gather funds for Ukraine.
• Silent moment in Oscars was witnessed for depicting solidarity with the Ukrainians
• A football team from the conflicted region demanding Russian exclusion from FIFA.
• Bear Grylls meets Zelensky to showcase their support.

If western nations and the USA are so keen to end the war, why don't they supply heavy weapons to Ukraine?

As Colonel Richard Black (former secretary of Virginia) said - This war has become a football game. There are two teams. We have supplied fantastic quality weapons like from Raytheon Technologies which creates missiles and from Northrop Grumman which manufactures aircrafts also. The decision of war or peace will not be made in Ukraine. The decisive power lies in the USA. Ukrainians are just proxies.

It is clear that nations are extending the war against Russia using Ukrainians as puppets. That's the reason the war is extending for considerably long periods of time. Now, recently the Netherlands has also announced joining the US and West in supplying weapons to Ukraine.

Also, Canada, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Australia, Lithuania, New Zealand, and the Netherlands are all training Ukrainian forces in the UK. And also, the USA has already sent its top officials to Ukraine. These are the signals that this war will extend further.

Voices to end war-

Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission has also expressed her opinion that Western Nations need to bolster their weapon supply to Ukraine to end the war soon.

India has also called for a peaceful solution.

There are multiple reasons behind not providing cutting edge weapons and advanced lethal military equipments to Ukraine -

• Sending expensive weapons will be a huge burden on economies which are getting back to normalcy after the pandemic. Also, predictions of upcoming recession are preventing nations from spending money unnecessarily.
• As Ukraine is getting huge amounts of arms and ammunition, its soldiers are using it in a reckless manner. They are not giving sophisticated care to the equipment. These weapons will end up in black market and it will ultimately increase the crime rate across Europe as the people can get them at very cheap rates. And if they fall in hands of Russia and Iran, they will reverse engineer and detect the weakness of weapons which will backfire Western Nations and USA.
• By providing the equipment which were to be retired soon anyways, nations are just pretending to help Ukraine and gaining prestige among their countrymen.
• Some countries are also sending new weapons to Ukraine to test them and get A++ ratings and a demand for them in the global market.

Despite the collective concerns, the nation's have their own particular concerns behind not giving lethal weapons to Ukraine.

Let's look at some of them

Israel

The ambassador of Ukraine to Israel Yevgen Korniychuk met US Envoy Tom Nides to ask Israel to supply military aid to Ukraine. Israel is doing strikes in Syria and Russia has active bases in Syria. So, Israel needs Russian support to hinder Iran's help to groups like Hezbollah and Hamas. These are the groups which keep attacking Israel from time to time. Also, it's not in the interest of Israel to make an enemy which has over around 1,80,000 Jewish population. Israel doesn't want its people to be targeted in Russia for helping Ukraine. Also, when Israel voted in favor of Ukraine and against Russia at UNSC, Russia showed strong disapproval and asked Israel to stay out of this war.

Also, if Israel sends its 'Iron Dome' in Ukraine and Iran gets access to it and gets its mechanisms and weaknesses, it would jeopardize Israel's national security interests. As Iran is the one aiding Hezbollah in attacking Israel.

Germany and Poland

Germany has been the crucial partner for Russia with its Nord Stream pipelines 1 & 2. Even all of Europe has been heavily dependent on Russian gas and crude also. But Germany and Poland have only provided old arms and ammunition to Ukraine. For example - T72 tanks which were of cold era times. These weapons were already on the threshold of crossing their lifetime. Germany and Poland know that ultimately they will be again buying Russian oil and gas as they used to. That's why they don't wish to give Ukraine lethal weapons.

USA

The USA has indeed one of the best stockpiles of lethal weapons. But it has supplied an M113 carrier to Ukraine which belongs to the Vietnam war times. Also, F-15 and 16 aircrafts are the ones which have been quite old now. The US has spent around $13 billion of military aid to Ukraine but none of them is the 'state of art weapon'.

There are many reasons behind this unwillingness. First thing is that these 'state of art' weapons are very expensive and sending them will be a huge economic burden on the USA. Even a few months back in 2022, at a moment when Ukrainian President Zelensky started listing the weapons his country needs to fight and how the countries are not providing cutting edge technologies to Ukraine, Biden became annoyed. He seemed very irked when he angrily advised Zelensky to show a little more gratitude.

Another point is that US weapons are good in the category of 'offensive weapons' but poor in air defense. That's the reason why India purchased the S-400 system of Russia, sidelining the USA's proposal. As per reports, when Iranian drones attacked oil sites of Saudi Arabia, Patriot Missile System of USA was not able to defend it. Now the same Iranian drones are fighting from Russia's side and the US doesn't wish to see its weapons failing.

Third one is, the USA is not directly involved in the war. Spokesperson of Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova clearly cautioned USA that if US sends its long range missiles if lethal weapons to Ukraine, it would be acknowledged as 'crossing red line' and then USA will be considered the direct party to this war.

Leverage for India

Now, as the regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Mariupol and 70% Kherson in Russian control, it's evident that Russia has no plans to go back from the occupied region. Also, in Just 2 weeks of January 2023, European Nations have gathered almost 8 million barrels of Russia's diesel. Western Nations and USA have prohibited Russia's Crude oil and gas but not Diesel. Because finding the sources of diesel is much more difficult than finding the sources of diesel.

Now, India has the leverage as it is getting cheap crude oil from Russia to which it can export at higher prices to other nations. The USA has recently purchased $588 million worth of oil products from India. With this, the USA has become the biggest buyer of India's refined petroleum products.

India can reap the benefits by becoming a new exporter of things needed by Russia and USA by circumventing sanctions.