Analyst: US seeks to prolong war in Ukraine to 'weaken' arch-foe Russia

A US-based political commentator and journalist says Washington is seeking to prolong the war in Ukraine in a bid to “weaken” its arch-foe Russia.

In an interview with Press TV, Patrick Lawrence said recent statements by senior US officials confirm that the “larger objective” in the former Soviet republic is to “weaken Russia” and “to break it”.

“There is no question that the US intends to prolong this war more or less indefinitely,” he said while referring to the recent unannounced visit of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Kiev.

Lawrence said the senior US government official’s visit to Ukraine came as Western arms shipments to the conflict-marred country and extreme animosity toward Russia have become “highly popular” in the US.

“Pelosi’s visit is meant in part to gather support ahead of the midterm elections here, which the Democrats are expected to lose quite dramatically,” the US-based analyst noted. “They have little to show voters on the domestic side: A war, in this way, is timely and useful.”

He further said that the US foreign policy is “very frequently” and “most of the time” determined by the country’s domestic politics.

Pelosi made a surprise visit to Kiev over the weekend to meet Ukraine’s embattled President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

She is the highest-ranking American politician to visit the country since the start of the Russian military operation on February 24.

Her visit is seen as the latest show of American support for Zelenskyy against Russia, and another provocation for Moscow to expand its operations in the country.

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Lawrence said “a new world order” was in the making”, adding that Moscow and Beijing “made this very clear” in the February 4 joint statement by Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, which was issued on the eve of the Beijing Winter Olympics.

“I think it is essential to understand the Ukraine crisis in this context. We have an imperial power aggressing in the name of its claim to global ‘leadership,’ meaning hegemony, and it is very clear that it will not stop until it is forced to stop,” he told Press TV in the interview.

Lawrence noted that new world orders “might in some cases come peacefully, with imagination and wisdom,” but very often they are bound to “arrive violently”, with history as a testament.

"It is unfortunate, but this is why I consider the Russian intervention in Ukraine ‘regrettable but necessary'. Once we see the conflict in this larger context, this conclusion seems to me beyond dispute,” he further added.

Putin and Xi in their February 4 statement said the world was going through “momentous changes”, and humanity was “entering a new era of rapid development and profound transformation”.

The statement listed “multipolarity” as the first of the “momentous changes” of the “new era”.

In the statement, the two leaders expressed their desire for the role of the United Nations in a world order not led by a hegemonic power that asserts its standards and poses “serious threats to global and regional peace and stability and undermine[s] the stability of the world order”.

“Certain States' attempts to impose their own democratic standards on other countries, to monopolize the right to assess the level of compliance with democratic criteria, to draw dividing lines based on the grounds of ideology, including by establishing exclusive blocs and alliances of convenience, prove to be nothing but flouting of democracy and go against the spirit and true values of democracy,” the statement read.

“Such attempts at hegemony pose serious threats to global and regional peace and stability and undermine the stability of the world order.”

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