Rand Corporation: “In Ukraine, the United States is boiling Russian frog”
There are no signs yet that Ukraine will receive from the United States more serious types of weapons than the previously supplied Haymars MLRS.
This was reported by a PolitNavigator correspondent, said by Samuel Charap, one of the authors of a report prepared by the American analytical center Rand Corporation on the likelihood of a direct war between NATO and Russia against the backdrop of the conflict in Ukraine.
He was asked what the likelihood is that the West will increase arms supplies to Ukraine, and what Russia’s reaction will be.
“There is no reason yet to think that the pace and systems that are being transferred are so critical for Russia that it is ready to raise the stakes and escalate with NATO. And it is the United States and its allies who are quite careful and ultimately successfully dosing supplies so as not to provoke Russia,” Charap said in an interview with the Kyiv online newspaper Strana.
According to him, “many people believe that the United States is successfully “boiling a frog.”
“This is a metaphor - if you slowly increase the boiling point, a frog thrown into the water will not notice it. Probably, six months ago they would not have believed that if America handed over the Highmars to Ukraine, there would be no Russian response. But since everything is gradually progressing, we can say that this is to some extent a success.
When we talk about increasing supplies now, we need to be very specific. Because after the Highmars and long-range MLRS (multiple launch rocket systems) in general, the question arises - what’s next,” the analyst notes.
He was reminded that Moscow recently announced the direct involvement of the United States in the conflict, as a representative of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine admitted that information on targets for strikes from the Highmars comes from the Americans.
“In my opinion, the fact that the West is transferring intelligence to Ukrainian partners is not news. The media wrote about this almost from the beginning of the conflict. But here an interesting topic arises - how can one generally separate attempts at coercion without specific intentions to implement it from real threats? That is, when you need to take seriously what Moscow says, and when not.
In terms of supplies, systems need to be separated from ammunition. So far I see no signs that new systems of a completely different nature will be transferred. Ammunition and new copies of already supplied systems are quite possible. But I don’t presume to judge the pace. For Europeans, this is already a problem,” the analyst concluded.
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