I’ve argued for a long time that despite all the bold rhetoric, the Biden administration’s support for Ukraine was wishy-washy, hesitant, excessively risk-averse, ludicrously slow-moving, and indecisive.
You don’t have to look far to find critics of Ukraine who look at the past two years of de facto stalemate and conclude that the Ukrainians cannot win the war or come anywhere near that goal, hand-waving away the fact that Ukraine has never had a U.S. president who actually wanted them to win the war and tailored U.S. policies to achieve that objective.
But don’t take it from me; take it from Ralph Goff, six-time CIA station chief, former CIA chief of operations for Europe and Eurasia, who recently unloaded his frustrations in an interview with The Times of London.
Looking back, Goff, who speaks five languages including Russian, believes the big war that started in February 2022 might have been stopped early on if the US and its allies had given Ukraine the weapons it needed from the beginning.
What transpired instead, he believes, was a deliberate strategy to give Ukraine the arms it needed to fight — but not enough to defeat Putin’s army, because of fears the Russian leader would use nuclear weapons if he got close to losing.
“Had we equipped the Ukrainians at that time with proper weaponry, they might have been able to drive the Russians all the way out of the country. It didn’t happen. It set the stage for this longer, protracted, drawn out, meat grinder war that we are witnessing today,” Goff said.
He said President Biden and his allies allowed Putin to dictate the terms of the conflict and were nervous about sending Ukraine the equipment it needed at the right time because of fears “he will go nuclear”.
Goff added: “[They] allowed themselves to be bamboozled by Vladimir Putin and his nuclear-sabre rattling. So they gave the Ukrainians this weaponry, but they never gave them enough to win. They only gave them enough to bleed.”
It is a view shared by some in the heart of the UK government, but no one dares air it publicly.
Goff pointed out that Putin had a “real deadly fear of Covid” during the pandemic and “in my mind, people who are that concerned with their health are not about to play high stakes nuclear poker.”
But that was then, and this is now, and after a tumultuous first three months of Donald Trump’s second term, the U.S.-Ukraine relationship appears to be on more stable ground, with the signing of the minerals deal. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said to Sean Hannity last week, “It’s a way to show that there’s no daylight between Ukraine and the U.S…. [Trump] wants both sides to come to the table now, by showing that the U.S has an economic interest in Ukraine. It’s a signal to the Russian leadership.”
As usual, the U.S. perspective on the war depends a great deal on which administration official is speaking. But if you listen to President Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, retired general Keith Kellogg, the Ukrainians are showing tough resistance, largely helped by European assistance.
…Russia’s not winning this war. Russia has not made any major advances in the last year and a half. They haven’t taken the city of Kyiv, the capital. They haven’t pushed to the west of the Dnipro river, which is the major river obstacle. They haven’t taken Odesa.
They’ve lost hundreds of thousands of soldiers, and they haven’t really moved anything. It [Russia] moves by meters, not by miles. And the Ukrainians are fighting on their own soil, and they are fighting hard.
So when Russia says they’re winning – no, they’re not. If they were winning, they would have already won this war after three years, and now we’re into our fourth year. So I think they need to sit back and realize it. I think Ukraine’s in a good position. The Europeans have really stepped up.
President Trump had a lengthy exchange about Ukraine with Kristen Welker on Meet the Press yesterday, that concluded:
KRISTEN WELKER: What’s the red line for you? At what point do you say, “That’s it, we’re walking away?”
PRES. DONALD TRUMP: Well, you’ll know. I mean, there will be a time when I may say that. And if I do —
KRISTEN WELKER: But you’re not there?
PRES. DONALD TRUMP: There may be something. I can’t — maybe it’s not possible to do. There’s tremendous hatred, just so you understand. Kristen, we’re talking tremendous hatred between these two men and between, you know, some of the soldiers, frankly. Between the generals. They’ve been fighting hard for three years. I think we have a very good chance of doing it.
KRISTEN WELKER: Very quickly, if you do walk away, would that mean that you would pull military and intelligence sharing?
PRES. DONALD TRUMP: I don’t want to say that now. It’s too early to say that. I don’t want to get into that argument.
The Washington Post’s Catherine Belton reports that some Russians are starting to worry that Vladimir Putin had a window of opportunity to get a peace deal under generous terms with Trump, and the Russian dictator let it slip away by assuming Trump’s patience was infinite. “But behind the scenes, nervousness is rising among the Russian elite that the deal could represent a new alignment between the U.S. and Ukraine that could close a window of opportunity for Russia to secure a peace deal on advantageous terms.”
Things weren’t going to get much better for Russia than the Oval Office shouting match at the end of February. And yet, here we are, two months later, and the U.S.-Ukraine relationship is on more solid footing, and Trump is posting on social media of Putin, “maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along.”