US weapons shipments to Ukraine are senseless since they are not capable of changing the course of the conflict, Eric Prince, the founder of private American military contractor Blackwater, told journalist Tucker Carlson in an interview published on Tuesday.
The military aid to Ukraine is nothing but a “massive grift paid by the Pentagon,” Prince stated, adding that the latest major aid package worth $61 billion approved by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden in April will end up lining the coffers of US defense industry giants. Prince, himself a former Navy SEAL officer, resigned and divested from his company after the 2007 Iraqi massacre scandal.
“Most of that money goes to five major defense contractors to replace at five times the cost the weapons that we have already sent the Ukrainians,” the Blackwater founder said, adding that “it does not change the outcome of the battle.”
“The Biden administration believed that all this American weaponry would have saved the day. It has not,” Prince said.
The Russian military has published photos and videos of damaged and destroyed Western-made military equipment in Ukraine, including US-supplied Abrams tanks. One of them ended up at a trophy exhibition in Moscow, alongside a German-made Leopard main battle tank and dozens of other pieces.
Kiev’s forces are already spread “very thin” and are about to face an “ugly summer,” according to Prince. “All the defenses that were supposed to be built by Ukrainians are much smaller or non-existent,” he said, mostly due to “corruption issues.”
Moscow’s forces are “going to have a very good summer” and will seek to “absolutely humiliate the West and make sure they never have a problem with Ukraine again,” the Blackwater founder believes.
The interview comes amid Russian offensives in Donbass and Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkov Region, where Moscow’s forces have been steadily gaining ground. Last month, Russia’s former defense minister, Sergey Shoigu, said Moscow’s forces had seized the initiative and “dispelled the myth of the superiority of Western weapons.”
Prince went on to say that he never believed Ukraine could push Russia out of Donbass and Crimea. “The war should never have [been] started.”
The only thing Washington and its allies will achieve in Ukraine is “facilitating the demise of the Ukrainian men” and “destroying” this nation “for future generations,” the Blackwater founder said.
Moscow has warned that Western arms shipments to Ukraine will only prolong the conflict without changing the outcome. It has also accused the West of forcing Kiev to “fight to the last Ukrainian.” In early May, Shoigu said that Kiev has lost more than 111,000 troops this year alone.