Russia Would See U.S. Moves to Arm Ukraine as Declaration of War

Moscow Times ^ | 02/09/2015 | By Matthew Bodner

[Rusty0604]

U.S. provision of military aid to Ukraine would be seen by Moscow as a declaration of war and spark a global escalation of Ukraine's separatist conflict, Russian defense analysts said.

With Russia-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine seizing new territory from the Ukrainian army, voices in Washington are demanding that Kiev be given defensive weapons and hardware — including lethal equipment — to hold the line.

But if such aid were sent, "Russia would reasonably consider the U.S. to be a direct participant in the conflict," said Evgeny Buzhinsky, a military expert at the Moscow-based PIR Center.

Speaking to The Moscow Times on a condition of anonymity, a member of the Russian Defense Ministry's public advisory board warned that Moscow would not only up the ante in eastern Ukraine, "but also respond asymmetrically against Washington or its allies on other fronts."

"It would become tit-for-tat," said Maxim Shepovalenko, an analyst at the Moscow-based Center for the Analysis of Strategy and Technology (CAST).

"Moscow will not just sit by calmly and see what happens, it will counteract," he said.

The Russian counterstrike could take the conflict far beyond Ukraine, according to the source on the Defense Ministry's public advisory board.

Pointing to one possible avenue of asymmetrical retaliation, the source said Moscow could give in to long-standing Chinese requests for sensitive defense technologies that would aid in its development of high-tech weapons capable of doing serious damage to U.S. naval forces in the Asia-Pacific.

Moscow has so far declined China's requests on "politically correct pretenses," the source said.

"That's just one example. We can also encourage Iran, or even back Iran in a fight — a military operation — with Saudi Arabia, so then the prices for oil will skyrocket," the source said, explaining that these were just two possible responses.

[Paul R.]

Oh, my goodness. Not that you are entirely wrong: Yanukovych was Putin’s freaking handmaiden, corrupt on a level that makes Rod Blagojevich multiplied by Eliot Spitzer multiplied by (well, you get the picture) look like an amateur, and raping Ukraine’s constitution on a level that makes Obama look impotent. The EU agreement cancellation was a final straw, perhaps, but the Ukraine would have “blown” regardless of that or any Western meddling.

To really understand better, though, you have to at a minimum go back to WW2 (Ukraine was devastated horribly once by the Nazis and twice by Russia), and better yet, follow the relationship for at least the last several hundred years.

To understand the consequences of U.S. actions, “post Crimean invasion”, one must understand the basis of global security (such as it has been — no truly major wars) and relative lack of arms buildups from the end of the Cold War through 2008.