An interesting op-ed appeared in the New York Times on May 11, entitled “America and Its Allies Want to Bleed Russia. They Really Shouldn’t.” by Tom Stevenson, a reporter who covered the Ukraine conflict in its first weeks. Noting the statements by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, with regard to the new goals set by the U.S. and U.K. to reduce Russia’s ability to fight wars, he argues that the conflict has now entered a new and most dangerous phase. “By expanding support to Ukraine across the board and shelving any diplomatic effort to stop the fighting, the United States and its allies have greatly increased the danger of an even larger conflict. They are taking a risk far out of step with any realistic strategic gain.” And the initiative and decision-making are now clearly in the hands of the U.S., and not the Ukrainian leadership, he writes. (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/11/opinion/russia-ukraine-war-america.html)
“When I was in Ukraine during the first weeks of the war, even staunch Ukrainian nationalists expressed views far more pragmatic than those that are routine in America now. Talk of neutral status for Ukraine and internationally monitored plebiscites in Donetsk and Luhansk has been jettisoned in favor of bombast and grandstanding,” Stevenson writes.
