Instead, Austin says, Russia has paid a staggering price for Putin's “imperial folly,” losing hundreds of thousands of men and costing more than $200 billion.
Lloyd Austin
Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin wrote in his column for Foreign Affairs that in 1,000 days of war, Putin has not achieved his strategic goals in Ukraine.
“Ukraine matters to U.S. security for four obvious reasons. Putin’s war is a direct threat to European security, a clear challenge to our NATO allies, an assault on our shared values, and a frontal assault on the rules-based international order that keeps us all safe. Yet nearly 1,000 days into the war, Putin has achieved none of his strategic goals. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has not gone into hiding. Kyiv has not fallen. And Ukraine has not,” Austin writes.
He notes that Russia has paid a staggering price for “Putin’s imperial folly,” with hundreds of thousands of Russians dead since February 2022 and more than $200 billion spent. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Russia’s losses in the first year of Putin’s war alone were greater than Moscow’s losses in all conflicts since World War II combined.
The minister also recalled that the United States has allocated more than $58 billion in aid to Ukraine.
“Putin thought Ukraine would surrender. He was wrong. Putin thought our democracies would cave. He was wrong. Putin thought the free world would waver. He was wrong. And Putin thinks he will win. He is wrong,” the Pentagon chief wrote.
- On November 1, the United States announced a new $425 million aid package for Ukraine, which included ammunition for NASAMS, HIMARS, Stryker armored personnel carriers, and more.
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