In 2015, when Bashar Assad he was losing the war to stay in power in Syria, he supported the Russian military intervention and got it.
President Barack Obama He reacted with airy contempt.
“An attempt at Russia and Iran supporting Assad and trying to pacify the people will only trap them, and it won’t work, “Obama said in October.
It turned out to be different.
The Russian army, led by some of the same officers who now command the Russian president’s war Vladimir Putin in Ukraine, he got a unexpected victory about a brutalized people and a self-deceived American administration.
The key to Russia’s success was there deliberate, indiscriminate and massive massacre of civilians.
“Rescue teams in Aleppo reported that their cars and headquarters were among the first targets hit on Friday,” New York Times Anne Barnard and Somini Sengupta reported in September 2016.
“The effect was immediate: now that people are buried under the rubble, nobody comes. Or they take longer to arrive. Relatives return to exhume relatives with their own hands “.
This is the approach that Putin, with the help of Iranian drones, is taking in Ukraine.
The Russian attacks went away on Monday without water to 80% of Kiev residents, according to the estimates of Mayor Vitali Klitschko.
Dozens of energy plants were also affected.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Economy estimates that up to 130,000 buildings they have been destroyed by Russian attacks since the beginning of the war, including 2,400 schools.
The strategy is clear.
Putin’s armies could re-enter the field.
But if it manages to freeze, starve and terrorize the Ukrainian people by chasing their water supplies and energy infrastructure – while waiting for winter to slow Ukraine’s advance – it could still force Ukraine to accept some sort of armistice, leaving him in possession of most of his conquests.
This would count as a victory in Putin’s books, however hurt he may be.
It would also be an encouragement Xi Jinping of China looking at Taiwan e Ali Khamenei of Iran as it tries to suppress weeks of protest that are beginning to have the color of a revolution.
Much more is at stake in Ukraine’s outcome than Ukraine’s own fate.
What can the Biden administration do?
More.
And faster.
Until now, we have adopted a policy of timely delivery of critical weapons, such as Javelin and Stinger missiles who saved Kiev at the beginning of the war and HIMARS, the missile systems that overturned the fate of the war in the summer.
We need to move to an approach that is consistently maintained front of the pace of war and time.
On Tuesday, the administration announced that it will soon deliver two national advanced surface-to-air missile systems, or NASAMS, with a range of up to 30 miles to Ukraine.
But there is a problem: only “within the next few years”, according to a report by the Times, will Ukraine be able to receive the next six systems.
Ukrainians, whose country is almost the size of Texas, need the systems now.
If the US can’t deliver them quickly, we can at least deliver the Ukrainians unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) that it can deliver defensive skills and significantly improved detection at much longer distances.
The Biden administration has been considering selling four U.S. Army long-range UAVs armed with Hellfire missiles since June, but the request has been stuck in the bowels of the Pentagon bureaucracy for months by over-the-top fears that some of their technologies could. fall. in the hands of the Russians.
Why not approve the sale, ramp up the numbers and start training Ukrainians on systems now?
We can also begin to blame the Russians for their rampant destruction of critical infrastructure, which the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyenrightly called “acts of pure terror“And” war crimes “.
I have argued for months that we need to turn Russia’s frozen foreign reserves into a escrow account for the reconstruction of Ukraine.
And we need to let the Russian people know that with every criminal missile bombing, they will be trapped hundreds of billions dollars in repairs.
Finally, the administration should warn Iranian leaders that their unmanned aircraft factories will be attacked and destroyed if they continue to supply kamikaze drones to Russia, in flagrant violation of the Resolution 2231 of the UN Security Council.
Ukraine will never have reason to fear the United States for any of its malicious behavior.
All countries must be warned that the price is for helping Moscow in its massacre will be relieved.
All of these options, and I might add more, such as providing Ukraine with better armor and long-range rockets capable of hitting Russian military targets in Crimea, carry risks.
And the administration is right to think carefully about which risks are worth taking and which the American public will take.
Right now, however, the biggest risk is that Putin will use the same heinous strategy which worked for him in Syria, enveloping Ukraine in terror as if it were covered in snow.
Winter is coming.
Let’s help Ukraine prevail before it arrives.
c.2022 The New York Times Company
Source: Clarin
