The US wishes Russia “weakened” so it can not invade once more and Ukraine can win the conflict if it has the proper equipment, Pentagon leader Lloyd Austin stated Monday on getting back from a journey to Kyiv.
“The first step in prevailing is believing that you may win. And so that they consider that we will win,” Austin instructed a set of reporters after the go to with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
The two, who met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, had been the primary high-profile US officers to go to Ukraine because the Russian invasion started out on February 24.
“We consider that we will win, they are able to win in the event that they have the proper equipment, the proper support,” Austin stated.
Austin and Blinken stated US diplomats will start a sluggish go back to Ukraine this week and announced $seven hundred million (653 million euros) in extra navy aid.
“We need to look Russia weakened to the diploma that it cannot do the forms of matters that it has carried out in invading Ukraine,” Austin stated.
Russia “has already misplaced quite a few navy functionality. And quite a few its troops pretty frankly, and we need to look them now no longer have the functionality to right away reproduce that functionality,” he stated.