Jake Sullivan, Joe Biden’s national security adviser, also claimed that he developed a “plan” for Ukrainians to get “every single thing they need.”
The United States interpreted this Sunday the appointment of a new Russian general to coordinate the war in Ukraine as a sign that more “atrocities” and acts of “brutality” against Ukrainian civilians are to come.
Senior White House officials reacted in this way to the arrival in command of the Russian offensive of Alexander Dvórnikov, seasoned in the war in Syria and current head of the southern military district, which includes the annexed Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea.
“This general, in particular, has a history that includes brutality against civilians in other settings, in Syria, and we can expect more of the same in this setting,” said Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser to US President Joe Biden.
In an interview with the CNN television network, Sullivan predicted that Dvornikov “will be yet another perpetrator of crimes and brutality against Ukrainian civilians.”
A general hardened in Chechnya and Syria
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki also assured in an interview with Fox News that the Russian general “is responsible for atrocities” in Syria, and opined that his designation implies that there will be a “continuation” of that type of “brutality”. in Ukraine.
Russia does not usually publicize its changes in military command and has not confirmed that it has entrusted this new role to Dvornikov, who made him famous in the Second Chechen War (2000), the contest that brought President Vladimir Putin to power.
It is US and Western sources that have reported the change of command in the Russian offensive in Ukraine, now concentrated in the eastern region of Donbas after failing to take kyiv and other areas of the country in the first phase of the war.
Dvornikov, who was decorated by Putin for his military services in 2016, reportedly has a deadline to take Donbas until May 9, the USSR’s Victory Day over Nazi Germany, according to Western experts and sources.
scorched earth tactics
Sullivan said this Sunday that, although this appointment does not lead to optimism, his arrival will not necessarily mean a major escalation in the atrocities in Ukraine, since these have already occurred since the beginning of the war a month and a half ago.
“We have already seen scorched earth military tactics (in Ukraine), we have seen atrocities and war crimes and mass executions and shocking and terrifying images of places like Bucha, and the missile attack on Kramatorsk (train station),” Sullivan said in another interview with CBS News.
“So I think this is a sign that we’re going to see more of that,” he added.
Biden’s adviser also stressed that the United States is “determined to do everything possible to support the Ukrainians as they resist him (Dvórnikov) and the soldiers he leads.”
“No appointment of any general can erase the fact that Russia has already had a strategic failure in Ukraine (…). Ukraine will never be subjugated by Russia; it doesn’t matter which general President Putin tries to appoint,” Sullivan stressed on CNN.
As the Ukrainian authorities insist they need more weapons to deal with Russia’s final offensive against Donbas, which they have already begun, Sullivan underlined the extent of the military aid that the United States has already provided to Ukraine.
A plan to cover the requests of kyiv
In his interview with CBS, the adviser assured that Washington developed a “plan” last week with kyiv for the Ukrainians to get “every single thing they need” either from the United States or from its allies. in Europe and other areas.
“Some things we have already delivered, others are on the way and others we are working to achieve,” he said.
The announcement on Friday that Slovakia will send its anti-aircraft defense system to Ukraine to defend itself against Russian planes and projectiles is framed in this context, something to which the Slovak government has agreed in exchange for the United States deploying a battery on its territory Patriot anti-missile.
Sullivan also revealed that the United States is “evaluating (delivering) systems that would require some training for the Ukrainians” and is talking with kyiv about “how that could be done outside the country”, without elaborating.
This Sunday, precisely, the head of the Pentagon, Lloyd Austin, spoke via teleconference with “a small number of Ukrainian soldiers” who were about to take off for Ukraine after completing training in Biloxi (Mississippi).
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby explained in a statement that the group was already in the United States receiving training when the invasion of Ukraine began in late February.
However, since its official program concluded in early March, the Ukrainian military has received “advanced” tactical training and training to use “systems that the United States has provided to Ukraine,” including Switchblade-type drones.
