Biden administration, NATO countries haven't heard me - former US Ambassador McFaul on what Ukraine needs to win by year end

He said this in an interview with the Donbas Realities project.

“I wrote it, but the Biden administration and other Western NATO countries did not hear it. I wanted all the weapons that would ensure victory to be shipped already. They decided otherwise. That's their decision, not mine,” McFaul said.

This refers to his article titled “How to Get a Breakthrough in Ukraine,” published on January 30, 2023, in the Foreign Affairs magazine. In it, McFaul insisted on the need to provide Ukraine with exactly the amount of weapons and funding that would make it possible to defeat the occupying Russian forces and return to the 1991 borders before the end of the year.

McFaul did not predict exactly how the events would unfold, given that the West did not take the above step.

According to him, Ukrainians are capable of doing more on the battlefield than their Western partners expect.

“As for the future, I'm not a military expert, but I'll remind you how many analysts a year and a half ago expected Russia to win in a few days, that Russian soldiers would be in Kyiv in a few days, and it was a huge mistake. I would also like to remind you how analysts last fall did not expect Ukrainian success in the Kharkiv and Kherson regions. So I don't know what will happen next, but I believe that Ukrainians have been doing more than we expected them to do all along,” Michael McFaul summarized.

Who is Michael McFaul?

He is a scholar and a specialist in the former USSR and Russia.

In 2012-2014, he served as the US Ambassador to Russia.

He is an ideologue of the 'reset' policy in relations with Russia, which was implemented by President Barack Obama.

He is currently a professor at Stanford University.

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