West ‘anxious’ about Russian military – senior US diplomat

Washington is highly concerned about the rapid “reconstitution” of the Russian military and partly attributes this to Moscow’s “formidable” ties with China, US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell has said.

Discussing the Ukraine conflict in an interview on Wednesday hosted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington-based think tank, Campbell stated that “what we’ve seen over the course of the last two years is a reconstitution of the Russian military with a rapidity and a determination that, frankly, surprises us.” He further admitted that this “has been a topic of real anxiety” for the West.

Campbell was asked whether the US has been too cautious in providing military capabilities to Kiev, but responded by pointing out that Washington is “by far and away the largest provider of assistance to Ukraine” and that most aid was delivered “on a timely basis.”

The diplomat attributed the ramping-up of military production in Russia to foreign help, and particularly to cooperation with China. The State Department has underestimated how close the partnership between the two countries has become, similarly to how previous generations of American diplomats underestimated the depth of the Sino-Soviet split, Campbell claimed.

The relationship between Beijing and Moscow is “probably the most formidable and important bilateral engagement globally today that we have to take note of and respond to,” he argued.

There is recognition in the West that resolving the Ukraine conflict will require diplomatic engagement with Russia “in the not too distant future,” Campbell stated, while stressing that Washington has certain red lines.

“The stakes for us are high, we cannot afford to accept outcomes that are suboptimal to the extent that either Russia or China would come away from this thinking that this kind of experience should be replicated elsewhere,” the deputy secretary said.

Moscow’s stated goals in the conflict include making Ukraine a neutral nation with caps on its military strength, the reversal of discriminatory policies against ethnic Russians by Kiev, and the removal of radical Ukrainian nationalists from positions of authority. Russia has also demanded that Kiev relinquish its claim of sovereignty to five formerly-Ukrainian regions.

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky traveled to the US last month to present his ‘victory plan’, of which US officials are reportedly skeptical. Kiev is seeking to defeat Russia militarily with Western help.