President Biden spent hundreds of billions of dollars supporting Ukraine in its war with Russia, but according to a report from Time Magazine, a Ukrainian victory was never his goal.
Throughout the nearly three-year proxy war, the Biden administration never set any clear goals and only repeated mantras, such as the promise to support Ukraine for “as long as it takes.”
Eric Green, who was on Biden’s National Security Council at the time of the invasion, told Time that the administration never gave any promises to help Ukraine take back the land Russian forces had captured.
“We were deliberately not talking about the territorial parameters,” Green said. “That was not going to be a success story ultimately. The more important objective was for Ukraine to survive as a sovereign, democratic country free to pursue integration with the West.”
The report said Biden set three objectives for the war: ensure Ukraine would survive as a sovereign state, keep the US and its allies united, and avoid a direct war with Russia.
However, there was another goal not mentioned in the report: weakening Russia, something then-Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin acknowledged back in April 2022 after his first trip to Ukraine during the war. Austin’s trip came after the US and its allies discouraged peace talks between Russia and Ukraine even though there was a deal on the table that could have led to a Russian withdrawal in exchange for Ukrainian neutrality.
On their way out, Biden administration officials claimed the proxy war was a success despite Ukraine’s lack of a path toward victory. “It’s unfortunately the kind of success where you don’t feel great about it,” Green told Time. “Because there is so much suffering for Ukraine and so much uncertainty about where it’s ultimately going to land.”
The Time report noted that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who defined victory as expelling Russian forces and taking Crimea, recently complained about Biden despite the massive amount of aid he provided.
“With all due respect to the United States and the administration,” Zelensky told podcast host Lex Fridman, “I don’t want the same situation like we had with Biden. I ask for sanctions now, please, and weapons now.”
