Washington Post reporter Max Boot, who accompanied Austin to Ramstein Air Base, reported that “Austin told me that a ‘realistic goal for this year’ would be for the Ukrainians to cut the ‘land bridge’ between Crimea and Russia that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces occupied last year.” Milley defined the US’s goal as being to “liberate Russian-occupied Ukraine” and to “liberate the occupied areas.”Īmid the announcements, the actual goals of the US military are coming into clearer view. The announcements follow the declaration by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley that the NATO-backed Ukrainian proxy force would “go on the offensive” in the coming period. The report cited documents from the US army calling for “the most aggressive modernization effort in nearly 40 years.”Īs a result of the expansion, the US army plans to produce 90,000 artillery shells per month, up from 14,000, through the production of new factories and logistics hubs throughout the country. In addition, the New York Times reported plans by the Pentagon to increase the production of artillery shells five-fold. Formal announcements by the United States and Germany that they will send their own tanks are expected Wednesday. Poland formally announced that it intends to send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine on Tuesday. These announcements follow the deployment, according to the Pentagon, of “about 900 armored personnel carriers to Ukraine,” including the Bradley, Stryker, and Marder infantry fighting vehicles. The Abrams and Leopard 2, which are twice the weight of the Sherman and T34 battle tanks of World War II, are the successor to Nazi Germany’s Tiger heavy tanks that were thrown against the Soviet Union during Operation Barbarossa.Īltogether, the Telegraph estimated that the US and its allies are “poised to send nearly 200 battle tanks to Ukraine.” These measures make it clear that the war is not merely a proxy war, but an open conflict between NATO and Russia, threatening incalculable consequences for humanity. Abrams battle tanks stand on rail cars in Lithuania, near the Russian border, in 2019.
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