Lloyd Austin Photo: AFP

The US wants to "to see Russia weakened," US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said at a news conference in Poland Monday following his and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken's trip to Kiev.

Washington finally stopped pretending and revealed its true purpose. Washington's primary intent of provoking the Russia-Ukraine conflict has been to weaken Russia, which has been widely recognized by the international community. Moscow is fed up with Washington's attempts. Speaking on Monday at a meeting with top officials at the Prosecutor General's office, Russian President Vladimir Putin charged that the US and its allies have sought to "split Russian society and destroy Russia from within."

An article in The New York Times believes that the essence of the Russia-Ukraine conflicts has changed, transforming "from a battle over control of Ukraine to one that pits Washington more directly against Moscow." 

The rhetoric "to see Russia weakened" by the Pentagon chief clearly implied that the US has been trying to deplete Russia's military forces. "Washington may plan to provide more offensive weapons to Ukraine to equip the Ukraine military's offensive capabilities against Russia," Lü Xiang, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.

The US does not want to see room for negotiation. The door to negotiation, in fact, has been closed. Even though Lavrov pointed out peace talks with Ukraine would continue, their communications have become a chicken-and-duck talk, without any practical significance.

The US' blind provocations toward Russia can do nothing but add fuel to the fire, pushing the already escalating situation between Russia and Ukraine further into uncertainty. As a response, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Monday warned the West not to underestimate the elevated risks of nuclear conflict and sent a warning that there was a "real" danger of World War III. He also said that NATO was "in essence" engaged in a proxy war with Moscow by supplying Kiev with weapons.

These lines indicate that Russia has been making preparations. If the US-led NATO does supply Ukraine a steady stream of offensive and even destructive weapons, and continues its verbal provocations against Russia, it would irritate Moscow, triggering it to seek an escalating way to deal with the Ukraine crisis. This would arouse risk spillover. The US' practices towards Russia now increasingly risk turning Europe into a battlefield, which will be a huge disaster for European countries and the world.

The main purpose of the trip by Blinken and Austin is to prolong the military conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Washington is attempting to weaken Russia at the expense of Ukraine, which is clearly what Ukrainians are reluctant to see. In the eyes of the US, Ukraine is just a pawn. Ukrainians' bloodletting is just an instrument to serve Washington's intent of deterring Russia. Just as Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said on April 20, "There are those within NATO member states that want the war to continue, let the war continue and Russia gets weaker. They don't care much about the situation in Ukraine."