West determined to fuel proxy war in Ukraine with more weaponry

US president Joe Biden and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy (Picture: The White House/Flickr)

As the Ukrainian counter‑offensive against Russia remains stalled, the West is preparing to pump even more weapons to the frontlines.

Despite months of Western media hailing a coming Ukrainian military push-back, there has been little or no movement. That failure is driving US president Joe Biden to demand Congress handover an extra $24 billion (£19 billion) for the war.

The Democrats have already had four rounds of “aid” to Ukraine—totalling $133 billion (£105 billion)—approved.

Much of that money had gone towards replenishing US military equipment that has been sent to the frontlines. Now they are insisting on more.

The German government, headed by the Labour-like SPD and the Greens, wants in on the action too. It plans to send medium-range Taurus missiles to Ukraine’s capital Kiev. It hopes they can inflict the kind of damage on Russia that Ukraine has so far been unable to deliver.

“The counter‑offensive is faltering—Ukraine does not have a significant air force to support it,” declared SPD politician Andreas Schwarz last week.

“That leaves only guided missiles like Taurus cruise missiles, with which the Ukrainian army could overcome the minefields laid by the Russians and recapture territory.”

But the West attacking Russian positions with cruise missiles would likely lead president Putin to order an increase in his bombardment of Ukrainian cities. It would inevitably draw more people into a cycle of death and retribution.

The static frontlines have already started to shift the danger of military escalation to the Black Sea.

Russian warships this week opened fire on a cargo ship as it made its way toward the Ukrainian city of Izmail. Days before, stray Russian missiles landed in rural Romania—a member of the West’s Nato military alliance.

Ukrainian officials claim that since Russia withdrew from the UN grain deal some 200,000 tons of grain have been destroyed. The arrangement previously allowed safe passage for commercial vessels.

For their part, Ukrainian forces last week fired missiles at the Kerch Bridge that connects Crimea to Russia. It also marks the gateway between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov.

And they used a military drone to damage a warship near the Russian port of Novorossiysk on the north east shore, hundreds of miles from the nearest Ukrainian-held positions.

Ukrainian drones have also been used to hit the Russian cities of Taganrog and Azov. Both sides are now trying to damage each other’s supply lines, but a miscalculation or malfunction could easily spark a far more deadly and wider war.