Antony Blinken: "Putin failed"

TIME ONLINE Antony Blinken: "Putin failed" Samiha Shafy - 9 mins ago Western tanks in the war zone? NATO countries would have to decide for themselves, says US Secretary of State Blinken. The aim is to help Ukraine end the war. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Berlin on Friday Ten minutes. Unfortunately, that's all there is to it, says the employee at the American embassy in Berlin when she calls to announce the good news: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will give an interview to ZEIT ONLINE. On Saturday in the embassy, ​​from exactly 12 p.m. to 12:10 p.m., because the foreign minister obviously has a lot to do. In the end it will be 14 minutes. ZEIT ONLINE: Secretary Blinken, when will the war in Ukraine end? Antony Blinken: The short answer is: We don't know. I wish it would end tomorrow with Russia withdrawing, but it's hard to imagine that in the near future. President Putin does not appear to want to end the aggression. Nonetheless, he has already failed in terms of Putin's goals of destroying Ukraine's independence and sovereignty. He wanted Ukraine to be absorbed into Russia. He didn't succeed and he won't succeed. An independent Ukraine will be around much longer than Vladimir Putin is on the scene. ZEIT ONLINE: Is an independent Ukraine conceivable without Crimea and Donbass? Blinken: In the end, Ukrainians have to make these decisions for themselves, and we will support whatever they decide. The challenge for them is that they are subjected to this appalling aggression, which leads to massive destruction and enormous numbers of deaths. President Zelenskyy has to make very difficult decisions. Our goal – as well as that of Germany and many other countries – is to support Ukraine as best we can so that it can deal with Russian aggression and be in a stronger position when it eventually comes to a negotiating table. »Individual countries decide for themselves which weapons they supply to Ukraine; that is not a matter for NATO.« Antony Blink ZEIT ONLINE: Would the US also finance the recapture of Crimea? Blinking: I don't want to go hypothetical. As I said, we leave it up to the Ukrainians to make decisions about the future of their country. But our basic stance is: we will continue to support an independent, sovereign Ukraine that can defend itself and ward off aggression in the future. ZEIT ONLINE: The German Chancellor has indicated that there is an agreement between NATO member states not to supply Ukraine with Western-style tanks. Is that correct? Blinking: Individual countries decide for themselves which weapons to supply to Ukraine; that is not a matter for NATO. ZEIT ONLINE: Will Ukraine receive western-style tanks from any country? Blinken: As I said, the countries have to decide for themselves. What we've been trying to do from the start is this: to provide Ukraine with the equipment it needs to respond to Russian aggression. Their needs have changed over the course of the war because the war has changed. In order to defend Kyiv, the Ukrainians needed different equipment than they do now, when they have to push back the Russians in the Donbass. We focus on what you specifically need. It's not just equipment - training and maintenance are also very important. For some of the systems that are now being made available to Ukraine, their armed forces have never been trained. And if the delivered equipment falls apart and cannot be repaired, it is of little use. ZEIT ONLINE: Does that mean: no western tanks? Blinking: I don't want to go into specific systems. ZEIT ONLINE: What would have to happen for the USA to intervene directly in the war? Blinken: President Biden has been very clear on this. Our goal is to help Ukraine end the war - not to escalate the war. We're working on that. ZEIT ONLINE: But doesn't Vladimir Putin get exactly what he wants? His troops capture territories in eastern Ukraine and possibly a land bridge to Crimea. Blinking: He's not getting what he wants. What he wants, in his words, is all of Ukraine. By that I mean: the end of Ukraine's sovereignty, the end of its independence, its absorption into Russia. Listen to his words, just recently, when he tried to compare himself to Peter the Great and talked about conquering the whole country. That's what he's all about. Before the war, Putin tried to spread the idea that either Ukraine or NATO posed any kind of threat to Russia. That was never his motivation.