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Far from crushing the backs of Ukrainian civilians, vicious Russian attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure have fueled resistance to Vladimir Putin’s aggression, senior US and British military leaders said yesterday.
Army General Mark A. Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Royal Navy Adm. Sir Tony Radkin, the United Kingdom’s chief of defense staff, said the Russian leader had continued to make catastrophic mistakes in Russia’s war on Ukraine. The two men spoke during a meeting of the Wall Street Journal’s Council of Chief Executive Officers in Washington, DC.
The two men also discussed China’s challenges in the Indo-Pacific region.
The Russian war on Ukraine has now lasted 10 months and Putin has failed to get on board, Milli said. The Ukrainians beat back an initial attack on Kiev and then more than held their own in battles in the eastern part of the nation. Ukrainian forces launched a counterattack in Kharkiv that pushed the Russians back from the country’s second-largest city and then pushed the Russians out of the strategic city of Kherson, Mili said.
But Russia still occupies parts of Ukrainian territory, “and there is still a significant amount of fighting left.” Milly said. “But the situation on the ground at the moment is … [that] The lines are freezing and as winter approaches, things will slow down a bit as a result of the freezing cold. Then there would be few possible opportunities for offensive action by either side in the depths of winter due to weather and terrain. So we will see what happens in terms of that.”
Right now, Russia is also attacking the civilian population of Ukraine and launching waves of missiles into the country, attacking Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. “It is an attack on the civilian population of Ukraine,” the chairman said. “The Ukrainian military … is not dependent on that energy infrastructure to conduct military operations.”
Missile attacks are attacks on civilians. “It’s just unacceptable,” he said. “They are trying to break the back, break the will of the Ukrainian people. What you will see is that it is not breaking the back but increasing the level of resilience and resistance on the part of the Ukrainian people.”
Radakin said that Russian missile attacks are not effective in the least. “This is an existential struggle for Ukraine, … its brutality is fueling a stronger resolve among the Ukrainian people,” he said. “You’re seeing that every day.”
The admiral said the illegal attacks also strengthened the resolve of nations supporting Ukraine.
Neither Milli nor Radakin would put a timeline for war in Ukraine, but both essentially said their nations would support Ukraine as long as it took.
“Russia has made this catastrophic mistake,” Radakin said.
The attack didn’t just galvanize the Ukrainian resistance. But it provoked an “extraordinary reaction” from nations around the world. “For those of us in Europe, we must once again pay tribute to the extraordinary support America has given Europe,” the admiral said.
Both were asked whether a Russian invasion of Ukraine would embolden China to possibly attack Taiwan. Radakin challenged the very premise of the question that Russian aggression provoked war. “The catastrophic nature of the invasion by Russia in Ukraine, and the consequences that have flowed from it … do not make a very compelling case for other leaders,” he said. He noted that Russia is diplomatically isolated and economically crippled. Their tactics and strategies are exposed as flawed or incompetent. Radakin said the war on Ukraine should act as a deterrent to other nations thinking along those lines.
Milley said no one should underestimate the strength, power and expertise of the United States military. “It is the number one military in the world, and it is the most capable of combined arms maneuvers,” the general said. “We are one of the few militaries left in the world that can bring everything together in time and space and in all domains of space, cyber, land, sea and air and underwater. We are very skilled and talented at doing everything. And, and any adversary has Our abilities should not be underestimated.”
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