Kremlin Bizarrely Claims Goal of Demilitarizing Ukraine 'Largely Completed'
On Saturday, Russian officials claimed that Ukraine had, in fact, been demilitarized—in line with the goals of Moscow's invasion of the Eastern European nation—despite clear and significant evidence to the contrary.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine began nearly 16 months ago in February 2022 and has persisted far longer than Kremlin leadership reportedly anticipated. At the start of the conflict, Russia cited a handful of justifications that were swiftly scrutinized as dubious by experts, including claims that it sought to "denazify" the Ukrainian government and that Russian speakers were being discriminated against in Eastern Ukraine.
Another claim made frequently by Russia as the invasion continues has been about the need to demilitarize Ukraine. On Saturday, the Russian state-run news agency, Tass, reported on claims from Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov that Ukraine had been effectively demilitarized. The claim struck an odd chord, given that Ukraine has arguably more military hardware than ever before thanks to international aid. In attempting to make the argument, Peskov said the goal had still been accomplished since Ukraine is now utilizing less of its own hardware.
"Indeed, Ukraine was heavily militarized at the time of the start of the [special military operation]," Peskov told RT Arabic. "And, as [Russian President Vladimir] Putin said yesterday, one of the tasks was the demilitarization of Ukraine. In fact, this task has been largely completed. Ukraine uses less of its own weapons. And more and more it uses weapons systems that Western countries supply to it."
Peskov: Russia wanted to demilitarize Ukraine and it succeeded - now Ukraine has more and more Western weapons. pic.twitter.com/X01e06cCKk — Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) June 18, 2023
The purported demilitarization goal of the Ukraine invasion recently came under fire from Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close ally of Putin and leader of the Wagner Group, a private paramilitary unit, during a series of critical statements he made about the conflict as his forces retreated from the battlefield in Bakhmut.
Prigozhin argued that the invasion had backfired due to the fact that Ukraine had become more heavily armed by its allies in an effort to repel Russian forces.
A Ukrainian soldier firing a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG). On Saturday, Russian officials claimed that Ukraine had, in fact, been demilitarized—in line with the goals of Moscow's invasion of the Eastern European nation—despite clear and significant evidence to the contrary. Genya Savilov/AFP via Getty Images
"The special military operation was done for the sake of denazification and demilitarization," the Wagner leader said. "With regard to demilitarization...if they had 500 tanks at the beginning of the special operation, [now] they have 5,000 tanks. If they had 20,000 people able to fight skillfully, now 400,000 people know how to fight. How did we demilitarize it? It turns out that the opposite is true—we militarized her hell knows how."
Newsweek reached out to foreign defense experts via email for comment.
Since the start of the invasion, Ukraine has received tens of billions of dollars worth of military aid from Western allies like the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany. According to statistics from the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) tallying data from January 2020 to this past May, the U.S. alone has provided Ukraine with tens of thousands of infantry arms, hundreds of artillery systems, hundreds of tanks, hundreds of armored carriers, and more.
Source: Newsweek
