Despite Calls for Diplomacy to End War, US Confirms More Weapons Headed to Ukraine

Proponents of a negotiated diplomatic solution to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine this week decried the Biden administration’s latest military assistance package for the embattled country, warning that the longer the fight continues, the greater the chance of a catastrophic nuclear war.

The Pentagon announced Tuesday that the U.S. will deliver up to $625 million worth of additional armaments and ammunition to Ukraine following Russia’s illegal annexation of four Ukrainian regions last week, a move that prompted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to formally apply for NATO membership.

The new package includes four High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and an unknown number of guided missiles; 16 155mm howitzers and 75,000 precision-guided artillery rounds; 1,000 155mm remote anti-armor mines; 16 105mm howitzers; 30,000 120mm mortar rounds; 200 MaxxPro mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles; 200,000 rounds of small arms ammunition; and other armaments.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the new aid—which comes on top of more than $15 billion in American military assistance to Ukraine since Russia invaded on February 24—is “carefully calibrated to make the most difference on the battlefield and strengthen Ukraine’s hand at the negotiating table when the time is right.”

Peace advocates stressed that—with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s repeated threats to use nuclear weapons—the right time is right now, and that the United States and NATO allies should stop trying to weaken Russia by prolonging the war.

“The longer the war goes on, the more the prospects for a diplomatic settlement diminish,” U.S. political dissident and professor Noam Chomsky told Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman in a Monday interview. “The longer the war continues, the more the window closes.”

However, Chomsky noted that the United States and Britain “are keeping to the principle that the war must continue to severely weaken Russia—meaning no negotiated settlements, with all the consequences that follow.”

According to recent polling by the Quincy Institute and Data for Progress, 49% of Americans want Biden to do more to seek a diplomatic solution to the war.

Harry J. Kazianis, senior editor at 19FortyFive and president of the Rogue States Project, a bipartisan national security think tank based in Washington, D.C., wrote Monday for the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft that “tensions are rising by the second,” while “the chances of a nuclear war increase significantly every day that passes.”

With Zelenskyy having signed a decree Tuesday asserting that the prospect of talks with Putin is “impossible”—while signalling an openness to future negotiations with a change in Russian leadership—many Western observers have argued that seeking a diplomatic solution is an exercise in futility at this point.

“Are there still negotiation possibilities? There’s only one way to find out. That’s to try,” said Chomsky. “If you refuse to try, of course, there’s no option, no possibilities.”

Originally published at Commondreams.org.

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