(CNN) — US Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Affairs Celeste Wallander said Tuesday that Russia’s war on Ukraine must end in a “strategic failure” for Moscow.
That’s a “difficult question to answer, in part because it will depend on how the fighting goes in the summer, and it will depend on how well we can keep the fight going,” Wallander said, when asked by lawmakers on the US House of Representatives Defense Appropriations Subcommittee about what a victory in Ukraine would look like. The international community is unified regarding the application of sanctions and restrictions on Russian defense industries to limit Moscow’s capabilities, but this is not enough because they (the Russians) have options such as resorting to Iran, and we hope that they will not turn to China as well, so there are a lot of variables.
And she continued, “But what I will say is that our position is that this (the invasion of Ukraine) must end in a strategic failure for Russia, and that no aggressor looking at this in the world thinks that this is a good idea, I will get what I want and I will not pay any price.”
And she stated, “Secondly, we have to support Ukraine and work with them if there comes a moment when the Russian leadership is ready to negotiate, and the Ukrainian leadership leads the negotiation process, because it will be the one that succeeded in reaching this position.”
Wallander stressed that the United States had not found any evidence that weapons it provided to Ukraine were found abroad, adding: “Instead, we see front-line combat units actively using aid every day on the battlefield.”
Another senior Pentagon official, General Douglas Sims, stated that there are no reports of weapons disappearing from Ukraine, and stressed that it would not be in the Ukrainians’ interest to get rid of them.
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