While U.S. President Joe Biden views his response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine as a cornerstone of his foreign policy legacy, critics argue he missed a historic opportunity to help Ukraine win the war.
Michael Carpenter, director for Europe at the National Security Council, spoke with VOA, defending the administration’s policies on Ukraine, stating they were undeterred by Russia’s nuclear threats, and attributing Ukraine’s lack of success in regaining lost territories to manpower shortages.
The following interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
VOA: Is President Biden leaving Ukraine in the strongest position possible?
Michael Carpenter, Senior Director for Europe at the National Security Council: He is. Look, the United States has given Ukraine every capability militarily that they have asked for. We have secured through painstaking diplomacy with our G7 partners a $50 billion loan. We have lifted all restrictions on rules of engagement for our military systems, for our weapons that we have provided to Ukraine. And we have worked with the Ukrainian military and the Ukrainian leadership to devise a strategy for them to be able to defend themselves and ideally negotiate from a position of strength where they can achieve their aims to maintain a sovereign, independent, democratic Ukraine. That's always been our goal and it remains our goal. I fail to mention the sanctions and the costs that we have levied on the Russian Federation. Unprecedented sanctions in the energy sector and in the financial sector over the course of the last three months. So were handing things off, I think, on very good terms.
VOA: Does it mean that Ukraine, in your view, is ready to enter any possible negotiations with Russia next year from the position of strength?
Carpenter: Well, look, I think it's very important that Ukraine's leaders, that President Zelensky in particular, decide when he wants to negotiate with the Russians. And what I will say is, at this point in time, I do not assess the President Putin wants to enter into a negotiation on good faith on anything other than the terms for the capitulation of Ukraine. So Ukraine has to decide when it feels that it is empowered to enter into this negotiation. And it'll be up to the next administration to hold the Russians’ feet to the fire and ensure that they have the appropriate leverage to ensure that this is not a sellout of Ukraine's sovereignty, but that this is a negotiation that leads to a just, durable, lasting peace, that preserves Ukraine as a sovereign, democratic, independent state.
VOA: But is Ukraine in the strongest possible position for that? Because that was one of the goals.
Carpenter: It is, under the circumstances. Look, war is messy. War involves all kinds of suffering. And Ukraine has certainly suffered over the course of the more than 1000 days of Russia's brutal aggression against it. At the end of the day, Russia has occupied parts of Ukraine that I wish had not come to pass. But there are also realities in this war. And one of those realities has to do with manpower on the two sides of the front lines of this battle space. And Ukraine simply has fewer people on the battle space than Russia is able to muster. And that has resulted in the situation that we're in today. I think Ukraine is in a strong position. I think it's in a strong position financially. I think the capabilities that we have given, the investments we've made in things like Ukrainian production of unmanned aerial vehicles, in terms of the capabilities, the armored vehicles that we've provided, the HIMARS systems that have been highly effective, the air defense systems, including the Patriot, all of that has been, I think, incredibly useful for Ukraine. Of course, the situation remains tenuous in certain parts of the Donbass, and that is simply a reality of this war.
VOA: You said that the Biden administration achieved its goals towards Ukraine, but wasn't, at some point, the goal a victory of Ukraine?
Carpenter: Ideally, Ukraine would have been able to liberate its territory. I think there's still hope that Ukraine can continue to work towards not just defense but also liberating some of its land. But at the end of the day, this boils down to what I said earlier. This is a fundamentally a physics and a math problem in terms of the number of people on both sides of the front lines. And Russia is able to bring more soldiers to bear in this war than Ukraine has been able to. And we can give all the capabilities: from F-16s to Abrams tanks to HIMARS systems, ATACMS missiles, you name it. But without the manpower on the front lines, it's impossible to achieve what you have just outlined, which is complete liberation of all of Ukraine's territory. And so, look, it's up to Ukrainians again to decide when and under what circumstances they want to negotiate. But we have set them up for success, given the capabilities that we have provided, which I just want to remind your viewers, is close to $70 billion in security assistance. That is a significant amount of capability that the United States has provided.
VOA: You mentioned the assistance. In December, you assured us that the United States and the Biden administration will use all of that approved funds to provide Ukraine military assistance. But now there is $3.8 billion that this administration is leaving for the next. Why didn't the Biden administration use those funds? And do you have any concern that the next administration might not want to use these funds to support Ukraine?
Carpenter: Well, you know, I don't want to get into a complex discussion of the way our budgetary process works, but there is a difference between authorized funds and obligated funds. So we have provided all of the funds that Congress has obligated for Ukraine. That's not all the funds that have been authorized. But it takes coordination between the administration and Congress to be able to move all of that money. We have moved all of it that we had available to us. Yes, the next administration will now have the option to use some of that authorized money to continue to provide assistance to Ukraine. And some of what we have obligated is on contract, or is en route, and will arrive in the coming weeks. But all of that is available to the next administration to continue to support Ukraine.
VOA: Before leaving office, Biden’s administration, as you said, imposed major energy sanctions against Russia. Do you think that these measures might be something that pushes Russia economy closer to a collapse and something that can actually stop Russia's war machine?
Carpenter: Well, our hope is that this additional pressure, which is extraordinary because we have imposed full blocking sanctions on two of the largest Russian oil companies. Surgutneftegas and Gazprom Neft, together with over 180 vessels from Russia's shadow fleet. We hope that additional cost in position will bring Putin closer to a realistic and durable solution to this conflict when he sits down at the negotiating table eventually, whenever that happens. I think, of course, any type of sanctions that reduce the revenues available to the Russian Federation is less money in the hands of those who fuel Russia's war machine and Russia's aggression against Ukraine. And it provides more space for Ukraine to be able to negotiate from a position of strength.
VOA: In his foreign policy speech yesterday, President Biden mentioned as one of his accomplishments that he was able to prevent a direct confrontation between two nuclear powers, the United States and Russia. Many analysts that we're talking to say that fears of nuclear escalation prevented President Biden from helping Ukraine win the war. Why was the United States deterred by Russia's “red lines,” but not vice versa?
Carpenter: Nobody was deterred. The United States provided every capability that Ukraine asked for. It is only logical that as the world's largest nuclear superpower, that the United States has to factor in escalation management.
Anyone who says to the contrary is being irresponsible about foreign policy and does not sit in the Oval Office and have to make those weighty decisions.
VOA: But does it send a signal that Russia's “nuclear card” will always beat everything else?
Carpenter: No, it does not, because the Ukrainians have done extraordinarily well at certain points on the battlefield. But this fundamentally gets back to what the question you raised earlier, which is manpower. And that's not a variable that the United States controls.
VOA: How do you hope the next administration approaches the policy towards Ukraine? And how does President Biden feel about the fact that his legacy towards Ukraine will be largely defined by the policies of the next administration?
Carpenter: I'm not going to speak to what the next administration will do or won't do. I will just say that, again, this administration, we have tried to hand off a situation where Russia is both on its back foot, thanks to our sanctions in the energy and financial spheres; [and] Ukraine is in a solid macro financial state thanks to the $50 billion loan that we negotiated together with our G-7 partners, and that Ukraine has the capabilities militarily to be able to continue to maintain the defense of its territory.
