BEIJING, October 18. /TASS/. Any further assistance from Washington will not help Kiev improve the situation on the battlefield as such support is mostly aimed at channeling as much US taxpayers’ money as possible into the US defense sector, a Chinese expert surmised.
"Much of US aid to Ukraine is, in nature, the business that transformed the money of taxpayers into the wallet of the [US] military industrial complex in the name of supporting Ukraine, so no one should expect that a few more millions can bring any big change to the combat situation," Global Times quoted Lu Xiang, a research fellow on US studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, as saying.
According to the expert, many Americans view the Ukraine conflict as "an endless war with almost no hope of victory" for Kiev and Washington. US President Joe Biden and his allies are concerned about a possible U-turn on his "legacy," therefore "he is trying his best to add support to Ukraine and emphasize the importance of victory at the very last moment of his [presidential] term," Lu argued.
Chinese military experts told Global Times that the current developments in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine "won’t be affected significantly by any conventional weapons." The US assistance "can only prolong the conflict, but it's not enough to bring a victory for Ukraine," they warned. Moreover, Chinese political analysts interviewed by the newspaper agree that the United States "doesn't want the war to end any time soon."
On October 16, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky presented his "victory plan" in the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine’s parliament). Among other things, Zelensky wants an immediate invitation to join NATO, authorization for long-range weapons strikes inside Russia, and to be able to use European air defenses to protect Ukrainian territory. The plan also envisages the post-conflict reconstruction of the country with Western assistance and the deployment of a Western missile deterrence package on Ukrainian soil.
Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova slammed Zelensky’s ideas as a series of incoherent slogans. According to her, he is pushing NATO into a direct conflict with Russia.