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Fact Check: The US Government Is Using Ukraine For Proxy War, Wants To Chew Up Russian Army

Fact Check: The US Government Is Using Ukraine For Proxy War, Wants To Chew Up Russian Army

ukraine

US President Joe Biden, left, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv, Ukraine, Feb. 20, 2023. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

As the Ukraine war wages on and the U.S. continues to flood the country with financial support, many wonder if the U.S. is using the Russian invasion of Ukraine for its own means. Is the U.S. government using Ukraine for a proxy war and as a means to wear down the Russian army?

A proxy war is a conflict in which a third party intervenes indirectly in a pre-existing war in order to influence the strategic outcome in favor of its preferred faction, as defined by the Oxford Dictionary. They are often used as tools by great-power rivalry because they allow one side to “bleed the other without a direct clash of arms,” according to a Bloomberg analysis.

There are many examples of proxy wars. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union depleted the U.S. by supporting communist proxies in Korea and Vietnam. Then the U.S. got back at Russia during the 1980s in Afghanistan and Nicaragua by supporting anticommunist insurgents who killed Soviet troops.

Others are also wondering about the motives of the U.S. in the Ukraine conflict.

Pulitzer winner Seymour Hersh claimed, for example, the U.S. Navy as being behind the Nord Stream pipeline explosion, which heightened the war.

And, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recently stated that the war in Ukraine isn’t just a conflict between Moscow and Kyiv. He outright called it a “proxy war” in which the world’s most powerful military alliance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), is using Ukraine as a way to devastate the Russian state, Bloomberg reported.

“Lavrov is one of the most reliable mouthpieces for President Vladimir Putin’s baseless propaganda, but in this case he’s not wrong. Russia is the target of one of the most ruthlessly effective proxy wars in modern history. And the less U.S. officials say about it, the better,” wrote Hal Brands in the Bloomberg analysis.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin admitted America’s goal is to “weaken” Russia.

It would seem that Washington would want to end the war and encourage negotiations between Ukraine and Russia.

But President Joe Biden’s administration may be considering something else. “Now, the Biden administration is considering what would be one of its boldest moves yet, helping Ukraine to attack the peninsula that President Vladimir V. Putin views as an integral part of his quest to restore past Russian glory. American officials are discussing with their Ukrainian counterparts the use of American‐​supplied weapons, from HIMARS rocket systems to Bradley fighting vehicles, to possibly target Mr. Putin’s hard‐​fought control over a land bridge that functions as a critical supply route connecting Crimea to Russia via the Russian‐​occupied cities of Melitopol and Mariupol, the New York Times reported.

If true, this would point to a proxy war tactic.

US President Joe Biden, left, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrive to deliver statements at Mariinsky Palace during an unannounced visit, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Feb. 20, 2023. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)