Deliveries with Lethal Results: Is There Going to Be a War?

23.12.2017

The US have approved commercial licenses for the delivery of small arms to Ukraine. The State Department has denied this fact in a RIA-Novosti commentary; however, a representative of the agency confirmed the fact that the issuing of a licence had taken place in an interview for TASS. Among the weaponry are Barrett M107A1 rifles, spare parts, additional equipment, and also ammunition for the total cost of 41,5 million dollars.

We remind the reader that the day before another escalation had taken place in South-Eastern Ukraine.

Not the first incident

There is no nonsense in what is occurring, as this isn’t the first year that Ukraine is receiving American arms. The press secretary of the US State Department, Heather Nauert, has openly declared that Kiev had begun to buy weaponry from American producers “in small quantities” before the autumn of 2014. To be precise, 15 M82A1 rifles were bought for the Ukrainian special forces in 2014, after which the state company ‘Ukrinmash’ acquired M107A1 rifles from the arms company Barrett Firearms Manufacturing.

“Under the two last administrations the US government had approved export licenses for Ukraine,” – explained Nauert laconically, - “so there’s nothing new here.”

According to Nauert, the license that was approved by the State Department includes semi- and fully automatic firearms, including .50 caliber arms, military shotguns and military-grade scopes.

It is important to add, that, according to information of the Washington Post, the Ukrainian government has requested the delivery of heavier weaponry; however, Kiev's request was refused. More specifically, the request was for Javelin anti-tank missiles. Thus, this is a logical continuation of the policy of the previous administration, which had also organised the Maidan.

Reasons for Trump

Trump is balancing on the edge of an impeachment and is still forced to disavow all ties with Russia. His course is now wavering between ‘Trumpism’ (populism, which is what the electorate voted for) and an adherence to the neoconservatives, among which is his son in law Jared Kushner. Bending all the more to the side of the neocons, Trump has made several unexpected moves, for example, recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

In addition, taking into account the investigation against him and the threat of an impeachment, Trump is forced to continue the older lines of policy in some way or another, which includes providing support to Ukraine. He doesn’t as a rule mark Russia as the ‘aggressor’ in his rhetoric; however, the establishment acts of its own volition in this matter.

A reckless move

Russia’s reaction in this case is unambiguous. As the head of the State Duma’s Defense Committee, Vladimir Shamanov, has said, the US decision is a “fastidious, reckless move”.

At the same time the next escalation in the Donbass conflict is taking place, as a result of which the Russian side has recalled its military observers. Actually, this reaction is understandable and logical: this way the responsibility for further attacks is immediately put on Kiev. If Petro Poroshenko (or his future replacements) decide on a serious escalation in Novorossiya, Russia will have a full moral right to move its armies into the region and defend the territories with a Russian population by force.

In addition, the remodelled American national security strategy, which has been cleared by Congress and which discusses countering Russia in several areas, is not a sudden move. As is said in the document, Moscow’s potential creates an “unstable frontier in Eurasia, in which the danger of conflict grows because of Russian miscalculations”.

The chairman of the US Senate Committee for international affairs, Bob Corker, has commented on the strategy with the following words: “our government’s long-term loyalty to Ukraine against continuing Russian aggression”.

More and more experts are predicting that the war’s ‘hot’ phase will not be over for a long time. Taking into account the fact that the Ukrainian Armed Forces regularly attack the civilian population, it is unreasonable to assume that their rage will be cooled when they receive lethal weaponry. And if we take both the unstable political situation in Ukraine into account, only anti-Russian hysteria, boiling over into war, becomes the only way to justify the sale of the country and the political fiasco.

By the way, it is necessary to remark that many military experts consider the idea that Kiev will start a full-scale war after having received the new weaponry with scepticism. There is a chance of a large-scale attack, but Ukraine will probably be sold old equipment that is no longer useful to the Americans. As the president of the Centre for Ethnic and International Studies Anton Bredikhin has suggested, “a large part of this weaponry won’t reach the armed forces, to say nothing of it reaching the front. We see a very active arms trade in Ukraine.”

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Deliveries with Lethal Results: Is There Going to Be a War?

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