Austin: US would like Russian military 'weakened'

Julia Shapero
Axios
Mon, 25 Apr 2022 19:35 UTC

© Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Monday that the U.S. would like to see Russia's military "weakened to a degree."

The big picture: Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv on Sunday.

• Austin and Blinken promised Zelensky over $300 million in foreign military financing and noted that the U.S. had approved a $165 million sale of ammunition.
• They also said that U.S. diplomats will return to Ukraine this week.

What they're saying: "We want to see Russia weakened to a degree that it can't do the kinds of things it has done in invading Ukraine," Austin told reporters in Poland.

• "It has already lost a lot of military capability and a lot of its troops, quite frankly," Austin added. "And we want to see them not have the capability to very quickly reproduce that capability."

Comment: The U.S. is willing to see the Ukrainian military obliterated in order to "weaken" the Russian military. And they're willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars, probably approaching billions, in order to do so. Will they succeed? Doubtful.