{"id":282292,"date":"2024-02-23T08:35:31","date_gmt":"2024-02-23T08:35:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=282292"},"modified":"2024-02-24T06:36:15","modified_gmt":"2024-02-24T06:36:15","slug":"russia-has-broken-the-stalemate-in-ukraine-former-us-defense-secretary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=282292","title":{"rendered":"Russia has broken the stalemate in Ukraine: Former US Defense secretary"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clayton Vickers \u2013 The Hill Feb 21, 2024<\/strong><\/h1>\n

The Russian military has broken the stalemate in the Ukraine war, Robert Gates, former CIA director and secretary of Defense, said Wednesday, following Moscow\u2019s successful push to take the front-line city of Avdiivka.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s no longer a stalemate. The Russians have regained momentum,\u201d Gates told The Washington Post\u2019s David Ignatius in a streaming interview. \u201cEverything I\u2019m reading is that the Russians are on the offensive along the 600-mile front.\u201d<\/p>\n

Russia has suffered staggering losses in the war, he noted, but with Ukraine now confronting artillery shortages due to flagging U.S. support,\u00a0\u201cthe Russians are feeling that the tides have turned, and while there is much to be done, the initiative has passed to them,\u201d Gates said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have more and more supplies coming in \u2014 I\u2019ve read that for every artillery shell fired by Ukrainian forces, the Russians fire 10,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Russian officials announced Monday that its forces finalized their capture of the key Ukrainian city of Avdiivka after taking full control of the city\u2019s large coke plant. The costly operation marked Russia\u2019s first major victory in months, and its most significant gain since taking nearby Bakhmut last spring.<\/p>\n

President Biden pinned the blame for Ukraine battlefield losses directly on House Republicans, who have refused to back additional aid to Kyiv without major immigration reform.<\/p>\n

Gates noted that European allies in NATO, \u201cwho we so often criticize,\u201d have stepped up their support to Ukraine, but lack the ability to immediately send weapons. Production timelines will see NATO support reach the battlefield in 2025, he estimated.<\/p>\n

Right now, \u201cthe only real military lifeline comes from the United States. And as we all know, that is, shall we say, on pause right now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Aid to Ukraine still lingers in the House<\/a>, where Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is caught between moderates who support Ukraine and far-right members who oppose it without major concessions from Democrats on the border.<\/p>\n

Gates called out Congress specifically for being too slow on approving key battlefield capabilities throughout the war, such as missile systems that have allowed strikes against Russian-occupied Crimea<\/a>, which he called a \u201cno-brainer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCongress will debate for a year or more whether to send the Ukrainians tanks, and after a year, they\u2019ll send tanks,\u201d he said. These weapons could have arrived \u201ca year and a half\u201d earlier, and their delay has restrained Ukraine\u2019s abilities, he said.<\/p>\n

The timing of the current aid package \u2014 Biden requested a $60 billion supplemental, which was part of a bipartisan Senate package passed earlier this month \u2014\u00a0is going to be a determining factor in Ukraine\u2019s survival against a revived Russian offensive in 2024, Gates said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the main values of the package of assistance that\u2019s on the Hill right now, is it would provide Ukraine with significant air-defense capacity, and the wherewithal to establish a strong defensive barrier so they don\u2019t lose any more territory,\u201d Gates said.<\/p>\n

Passing the package would send a message to Russia that \u201cthey\u2019re not going to be successful in achieving their goals,\u201d a necessary step toward a cease-fire, rebuilding Ukraine and its eventual induction into NATO, he added.<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As Russia\u2019s campaign in Ukraine gathers momentum, former US Defense Secretary Robert Gates admits that Moscow\u2019s forces have regained the initiative <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[91,116],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-282292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-russia","category-ukraine"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=282292"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":282293,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282292\/revisions\/282293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=282292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=282292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=282292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}