General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that Ukraine publicly requested a long list of weapons, including 1,000 howitzers, 500 tanks and 300 multiple launch rocket systems.
Journalists noted that they could see Milley's indignation about Kyiv's unbridled appetite. In his speech, the general meticulously listed all the weapons that the international community already supplied to Ukraine:
The list continues with combat unmanned flying and floating systems, French, Swedish, and British-made grenade launchers, as well as old Soviet weapons at warehouses of the so-called Visegrad Four, artillery fire spotters and non-lethal cargo — dry rations, walkie-talkies, uniforms, not counting direct financial transfers and direct control of the Ukrainian army and special services with the help of highly qualified Western specialists.
Mark Milley also forgot to mention the British public opinion manipulation unit that works hard in Ukraine, the operation of space communications and activities to train Ukraine recruits to use complex weapons …
In spite of all that, Ukraine is unable to even restrain the slow, but inevitable pistonal movement of the Russian army. Zelensky is only left to ask for more weapons that will ultimately be used to destroy the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
According to Milley's logic, the weapons that Kyiv has received so far, have made the Ukrainian army stronger than the army of an average European country. Yet, Ukraine still wants more.
Major General Andor Sandor, the former chief of military intelligence of the Czech Republic, admitted on July 4 in an interview with the Parliamentní listy that the Czech Republic had nothing to defend itself with after all the shipments that had been made to Ukraine.
The current state of affairs in the European industry does not allow Brussels to wage a long-term military conflict, Sandor believes.
The European Union is already exhausted, but it has to brace for energy shortages that it will inevitably experience later during the year.
Kyiv should not forget that the West considers any military campaign as a commercial enterprise, a lucrative long-term investment. Ukraine has turned out to be a very unprofitable investment, though. For the West, Ukraine has become something like a heavy suitcase with a broken handle: it is too hard to carry it, but one can not just leave it.
For this reason Mark Milley and US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin agreed to a targeted delivery of only ten MLRS systems with ammunition for 100 rockets per unit. Ukraine wanted to receive at least 300 such systems.
It turns out that the Ukrainian investment may lose its profitability. As soon as it happens, we can hear Western officials saying that they want to have Zelensky at the negotiating table. In other words, they want to keep at least part of the acquired "assets" — Western Ukraine that is. Such a development will give NATO the expected, albeit minimal achievement: the alliance will be able to move its bases to new territories and prepare a springboard for the next war under the banner of revanchism.
There are countless examples of such endless conflicts — Israel and Palestine, India and Pakistan, China and Taiwan …
In this regard, it becomes clear that prior to the transition to the allegedly peaceful scenario, NATO strategists intend to keep the key stakes that have not been lost yet. The most important of them is not Kyiv but Odessa. It is here where the fate of the special operation is going to be decided: the port of Odessa implies a possibility of uncontrolled supplies of new weapons and the presence of NATO in close proximity to the coast of Russia.
We can say without prejudice that Harpoon and Sea Spear anti-ship missile systems with Brimstone missiles, Mantas T-12 combat marine drones, which the Ukrainians have learned to use after completing an internship at the Little Creek base in the state of Virginia, will make the lion's share of new arms supplies.
Harpoon rockets may indeed create additional difficulties during hostilities in Odessa. The maximum effective firing range for this weapon, which was developed in 1977, is about 300 kilometers. Moreover, the Harpoon rocket flies at a speed of Mach 0.85.
The UK that delivers its Harpoons to Kyiv does not lose anything as these weapons are subject to decommissioning.
Bonnie Kristian, a young American journalist, published a curious article in the New York Times. The article, which appears to be unusual for Anglo-Saxon mainstream media, has a telling title: "Are We Sure America Is Not at War in Ukraine?".
Bonnie Kristian believes that, Joe Biden has been imperceptibly drawn into the war, even though he had assured everyone that the USA would not be directly involved in the conflict in Ukraine.
36th President Lyndon Johnson found himself in a similar situation. Lyndon promised not to send American soldiers to Indochina, but as a result, in 1965, he decided to start hostilities in Vietnam. American intervention in Somalia, Yemen, Niger and Pakistan were developing according to similar scenarios.
Bonnie Kristian is clearly concerned about the looming inglorious end of Pentagon's yet another military undertaking. The journalist suggests the USA should stop in time. If Russia had done to America all those things that the United States has already done to Russia, Washington would have considered Moscow a participant to the conflict, the American journalist exclaims.
Kristian is particularly worried about the prospect for the USA to send long-range missile systems that could strike inside the Russian territory. In addition, Biden plans to ship four attack drones that can be armed with silent and high-precision AGM-114 Hellfire rockets, the journalist wrote. Such actions can be considered a direct transition to an armed conflict between the United States and Russia, the author of the article concludes.
Unfortunately, the world is getting closer to the point of no return. Perhaps, in order to avoid further escalation of the conflict, Russia will simply have to proceed to even more decisive actions in the conflict zone, including the use of three-ton high-explosive bombs and heavy flamethrower systems. Striking decision-making centers on the Ukrainian territory adjacent to the Polish border also appears to be an option here.