{"id":13863,"date":"2022-05-01T12:49:09","date_gmt":"2022-05-01T04:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/?p=13863"},"modified":"2022-05-01T12:49:11","modified_gmt":"2022-05-01T04:49:11","slug":"ignoring-putins-threats-us-boosts-support-for-ukraine-with-new-arms-munitions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/?p=13863","title":{"rendered":"Ignoring Putin\u2019s threats, US boosts support for Ukraine with new arms, munitions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON, May 1 \u2013<\/strong>\u00a0In rallying global arms supplies and asking Congress for US$33 billion (RM143.7 billion) more to support Ukraine, Washington is choosing to ignore Vladimir Putin\u2019s threats to use nuclear arms, and instead is openly testing the Russian leader\u2019s limits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the United States brought 40 countries to a US base in Germany last week to discuss aid for Ukraine\u2019s war with Russia, Putin on Wednesday threatened a \u201clightning-fast\u201d response if there is any direct intervention by outsiders on Kyiv\u2019s behalf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have all the tools for this, that no one else can boast of having. We won\u2019t boast about it: we\u2019ll use them if needed,\u201d<\/em> Putin said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a thinly veiled reference to Russia\u2019s tactical nuclear weapons, which Russian military doctrine holds can be used to force an adversary to retreat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rather than pull back at threats to unleash Moscow\u2019s nuclear bombs, US President Joe Biden doubled down on US support for Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The US$33 billion he requested includes US$20 billion for arms and munitions, nearly seven times the amount sent to the country since the Russians invaded on February 24.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No longer hiding support<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Early in the war, Washington worried that aggressively equipping Ukraine\u2019s army with anything but \u201cdefensive<\/em>\u201d weaponry risked embroiling the US and Nato in a direct conflict with Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"threats\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Now, the Pentagon has shed those earlier inhibitions and is shipping offensive weapons like heavy artillery, helicopters, and attack drones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rather than hiding it, the Pentagon also began openly talking this week about how it is training Ukrainian troops, including inside Germany, to use the weapons they are receiving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And instead of saying, as it did in February, that it wants only to help Ukraine survive, Washington now says its goal in the war is to debilitate Russia for the long term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can\u2019t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine,\u201d<\/em> US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin said after a visit to Kyiv last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shrugging off Moscow\u2019s threat<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inside the US government, Putin\u2019s nuclear threat is being shrugged off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biden and his top officials have labeled Moscow\u2019s nuclear threats \u201cirresponsible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt shows the desperation that Russia is feeling about their abject failure in being able to do what they set out to do\u201d<\/em> in Ukraine, Biden said Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Friday, a senior US defense official said that even as the Pentagon constantly monitors Russia\u2019s nuclear force, \u201cWe do not assess that there is a threat of the use of nuclear weapons and no threat to Nato territory.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lawrence Freedman, professor emeritus at King\u2019s College in London, said there are no signs that Russia is preparing to use its nuclear or chemical weapons in the Ukraine conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIts threats are taken less seriously than before and it has nothing positive to offer. It is already a diminished power,\u201d<\/em> Freedman wrote on his blog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That view was echoed by Gideon Rose of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMoscow will not use nuclear weapons during the conflict,\u201d<\/em> said Rose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Putin \u201cknows that extraordinary retaliation and universal opprobrium would follow, with no remotely comparable strategic upsides to justify them,\u201d <\/em>he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even if Biden has repeatedly said that US troops will not get directly involved in Ukraine, the surge in support has turned the conflict into a proxy war, Sam Winter-Levy, a warfare specialist at Princeton University, wrote on the website \u201cWar on the Rocks.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe West needs to be clear-eyed about the situation it confronts. It is currently waging a proxy war with Russia \u2013 one that poses very real risks of escalation,\u201d<\/em> he wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, he said the current path \u201cmay still be the best option.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUltimately, the only options worse than a proxy war are a cheap Russian victory in Ukraine \u2013 or a direct confrontation between Russia and the United States,\u201d<\/em> he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NMT<\/a> as reported by AFP<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON, May 1 \u2013\u00a0In rallying global arms supplies and asking Congress for US$33 billion (RM143.7…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13864,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10892,59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-war","category-world"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/20220304-Javelin_missile_Ukraine_anti-tank_weapon_defence_military-AFP_pic.jpg",800,533,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/20220304-Javelin_missile_Ukraine_anti-tank_weapon_defence_military-AFP_pic-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/20220304-Javelin_missile_Ukraine_anti-tank_weapon_defence_military-AFP_pic-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/20220304-Javelin_missile_Ukraine_anti-tank_weapon_defence_military-AFP_pic-768x512.jpg",640,427,true],"large":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/20220304-Javelin_missile_Ukraine_anti-tank_weapon_defence_military-AFP_pic.jpg",640,426,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/20220304-Javelin_missile_Ukraine_anti-tank_weapon_defence_military-AFP_pic.jpg",800,533,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/20220304-Javelin_missile_Ukraine_anti-tank_weapon_defence_military-AFP_pic.jpg",800,533,false],"newsium-slider-full":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/20220304-Javelin_missile_Ukraine_anti-tank_weapon_defence_military-AFP_pic.jpg",800,533,false],"newsium-featured":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/20220304-Javelin_missile_Ukraine_anti-tank_weapon_defence_military-AFP_pic.jpg",800,533,false],"newsium-medium":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/20220304-Javelin_missile_Ukraine_anti-tank_weapon_defence_military-AFP_pic.jpg",713,475,false]},"author_info":{"info":["Editor"]},"category_info":"War<\/a> World<\/a>","tag_info":"World","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13863"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13865,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13863\/revisions\/13865"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}