Nova News – Jan 4, 2025

The United States secretly supplied weapons to Ukraine in 2021, before the start of the Russian invasion, US Secretary of State revealed. Antony Blinken, in an interview with the New York Times published today. “If you look at the trajectory of the conflict, as we saw it coming, we were able to make sure not only that we were prepared and that allies and partners were prepared, but that Ukraine was prepared. Well before the Russian aggression happened, starting in September and then again in December (2021), we quietly brought a lot of weapons to Ukraine to make sure they had what they needed to defend themselves, including Stingers (air defense systems) and Javelins (anti-tank weapons systems), which were instrumental in preventing Russia from taking Kiev,” Blinken said.

The outgoing Secretary of State then underlined the “extraordinary” diplomatic ability to bring together and keep together more than 50 countries, not only in Europe, in support of Ukraine. “I worked very hard in the period leading up to the war, including meetings with my Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, in Geneva a couple of months before the war, trying to find a way to see if we could prevent it, trying to test the proposal whether it was really about Russia’s concerns about its security, concerns in some way about Ukraine and the threat that it posed, or about NATO and the threat that it posed, or whether it was about what it was really about, which is the imperial ambitions of Putin and the desire to recreate a greater Russia, to reabsorb Ukraine into Russia,” Blinken said. “Since then, if there was any opportunity to engage diplomatically in a way that could end the war on just and lasting terms, we would have been the first to take it. Unfortunately, at least to this point, we have not seen any signs that Russia is actually ready to engage. I hope that changes,” he added.

On whether to end the conflict, the secretary of state reiterated that it is up to the Ukrainians to decide. “They need to decide where their future is and how they want to get there. Where the line is drawn on the map at this point, I don’t think fundamentally will change much,” he said. “Putin is unlikely to give up his ambitions. If there is a ceasefire, then, in Putin’s mind, the ceasefire will probably give him time to rest, to regroup, to re-attack at some point in the future. So what will be critical to making sure that any ceasefire that happens is actually durable is making sure that Ukraine has the capacity to deter further aggression. And that can come in many forms. It could come through NATO, and we put Ukraine on the path to NATO membership. It could come through security guarantees, commitments and promises from a number of countries, to make sure that Russia knows that if it were to re-attack, it would be in big trouble.”

The delivery of US weapons to Ukraine even before 2022 is one of the reasons behind the demilitarization strategy supported by Russia, the spokeswoman of the Russian Foreign Ministry told the news agency “RIA Novosti”, Maria Zakharova, responding to Blinken’s recent statements. Zakharova said Russia has long denounced the supply of weapons to Ukraine by the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as NATO exercises in the Black Sea and the dangerous approach of Western military aircraft to Russian airspace. “This is one of the main tasks of our special military operation: to demilitarize Ukraine and ensure the security of our country,” she added.

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