Rumor is that Russia only has about a week of supplies?
Of course we hear a lot of rumors... but if this is true, then Ukraine could in theory wait them out. But can Ukraine actually hold them out with their own limited supplies?
Perhaps Putin expected Ukraine to roll over. Perhaps he only planned for limited resistance. On the flip side, if Russian troops are really on all sides of Kyiv, then they could also prevent any sort of restocking of Ukrainean supplies?
Either way... I would still expect this to go on a while.
43 comments:
RUSSIA
No, Putin Isn't a Defender of 'Christian Values'
The country is one of the most egregious violators of religious liberty on the planet.
Billy Binion
Feb 25, 2022
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has pitted much of the world into two teams, as war tends to do. The prevailing sentiment in the West appears to be pro-Ukraine. But among certain corners of the chattering classes, there's somewhat of a third team: one that isn't anti-Ukraine, per se, but also isn't anti-Russia. There is one foe, and it is America.
Its loudest adherents, ironically, are arguably U.S. nationalists—who to varying degrees admire Russian President Vladimir Putin's attempt at cultivating what they say is a more moral nation. "I actually support Putin's right to protect his people and always put his people first but also protect their Christian values," said Lauren Witzke, the Delaware GOP candidate for U.S. Senate in 2020. "I identify more with…Putin's Christian values than I do with Joe Biden's."
Though Witzke took the fringiest route, she is not alone in her overall approach. Steve Bannon, once an adviser to former President Donald Trump, noted approvingly on his podcast this week that at least "Putin ain't woke."
Fox News host Tucker Carlson similarly admonished his audience: "It might be worth asking yourself…what is this really about? Why do I hate Putin so much?" he probed as he pushed back on the idea that the U.S. should intervene. "Is he teaching my children to embrace racial discrimination? Is he making fentanyl? Is he trying to snuff out Christianity?" (The monologue was later recycled by RT, Russia's government-controlled television network.)
It may be true that Putin isn't "making fentanyl." But to defend an isolationist position, one need not make light of the Russian president's moral atrocities—which have less to do with critical race theory and more to do with allegedly jailing and murdering dissidents.
Perhaps most ironic about Carlson's last question—and also per Witzke's comments—is that Putin, while a self-avowed adherent to Russian Orthodoxy, has been no friend to religious expression. In 2016, he passed a law criminalizing evangelical efforts outside of church walls—a measure that hamstrings religious life in public, in the home, and online, and thus targets many Christians for displays of faith. Those displays don't have to be overt: In 2019, a Baptist pastor was charged with illegal missionary activity for having the audacity to lead a Baptist worship service, and two members of the same sect found themselves in hot water after handing out religious literature at a bus stop. Jehovah's Witnesses are often at the center of such prosecutions as well and can face up to 10 years in prison.
The restrictions also likely impact the Orthodox community, as the government requires that anyone sharing a faith have a permit to do so and constrain those efforts to religious sites. In 2017, a year after the law's passage, Russia earned an unenviable distinction on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom's list of countries most hostile to the expression of faith. As of last year, it still sits atop that list, along with Syria, India, and Vietnam—places that perpetuate "systematic, ongoing, and egregious" violations of religious liberty.
Conservative expressions of affection for Putin's supposed moral clarity are perhaps louder than usual. That doesn't mean they're new. "While privacy and freedom of thought, religion and speech are cherished rights, to equate traditional marriage and same-sex marriage is to equate good with evil," wrote former White House Communications Director Pat Buchanan in 2013, as he approvingly summarized Putin's opposition to the latter. "No moral confusion here, this is moral clarity."
But once again, Buchanan et. al need not align themselves with a murderous despot in order to take a principled stand for traditional marriage—particularly when considering that the Russian president's positioning may be rooted more in strategy than in faith.
"Putin is seeking to tighten his grip on Ukraine and Belarus, as well as expand Russian influence further into Eastern and Central Europe," wrote Alexis Mrachek and Shane McCrum for the conservative Heritage Foundation in 2019. That feels a bit prophetic now: "He will undoubtedly continue to promote Orthodoxy in the process. This is simply an attempt to seduce former Soviet republics back under the sway of Russia." The Soviet Union of Putin's younger days was staunchly atheistic and used secularism as a tool to secure state worship. That ultimately failed. In some sense, Putin has subverted the approach to religion—leaning heavily on it as opposed to eschewing it—to arrive at the same end goal: state worship.
"The reality is that Russia is not the most religious nation in the world as far as…American evangelicals would recognize," says David French, a senior editor at The Dispatch who writes extensively on religion and U.S. conservatism. "I think it's much more a 'the enemy of an enemy is my friend.'…[Putin's] opposition to some of the international forces that some folks on the right in the United States despise the most creates a dynamic where there's a strange new respect for Putin, or sort of perceived understanding of Putin, or a perception that Putin can represent a welcome rebuke to an international order that they dislike." The things they take issue with may range from the United Nations to pronouns in bio.
In that regard, Putin has been waging a different war for years—a cultural one, where he has strategically placed himself at the front of the battlefield and succeeded in wooing some high-profile figures on the American right. That's not because the Christian values he espouses are necessarily important to him; I doubt many religious adherents would describe killing and poisoning critics as fruits of the Spirit. He's tried to obscure those cruelties by erecting himself as a moral bulwark against deviance. It's a tall order—and yet, somehow, in certain corners, he's succeeded.
YOU GOTTA REALLY WONDER ABOUT THE MENTAL MINDSET OF EVANGELICALS AND FUNDAMENTALISTS WHO FALL FOR THIS!
You really have to wonder about a religious right that lets itself get hornswaggled by Trumpism into the belief that this devious, immoral man is to be cherished by Christian fundamentalists.
Caliphate4vrFebruary 26, 2022 at 4:03 PM
Anonymous Senator Mich McConnell (R KA) said..
Way to go Alky.
That’d be KY you stupid fuck, you can remember this its what the 5th Beatle will use on you tonight"
Ouch
Not sure why this has anything to do with religion.
You have someone breaking every International law by invading another country and trying to replace the current leadership with a puppet Administration.
That should never be allowed under any circumstance.
James attacking religious freedom., again.
The US Constitution is Clear.
James, you ask for a new thread about Ukraine.
Can you thank CHT, and stay on your topic "Ukraine "?
Summer Patriot Biden recommended The "Winter Soldier" Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy flee with his tail between his legs.
Toxic Maculine zelenskyy told Biden "ебать ти".
I watched the Bill Maher show.
He mentioned something I hadn't thought of
Russia is the largest white nation of earth.
Just remember when Trump said Obama was born in Kenya Africa?
Guess what, that's why Trump loves Putin and Russia Russia Russia Russia Russia Russia.
January 6th was a violent Insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent a peaceful transfer of power after a legitimacy certified election.
Russia is the largest white nation of earth.
And then the bitter little fuck went on to take Anne Coulter’s comment completely out of context. I guess he’s still angry he couldn’t get her off.
I love his show…. The Latinx he gets why your side is in free fall
It IS on Ukraine.
And Russia.
And Putin
_______
READ THESE FROM THE BOTTOM UP
Russian Government Websites Suffer Disruptions
February 26, 2022 at 5:17 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 26 Comments
“The main Kremlin website and other Russian government websites were inaccessible Saturday amid reports of cyberattacks targeting Moscow in retaliation for its invasion of Ukraine,”
the Wall Street Journal reports.
GEE, I WONDER WHO DID THAT? WE WOULD CERTAINLY NEVER DO ANYTHING LIKE THAT!
Zelensky Tries to Rally ‘Antiwar Coalition
February 26, 2022 at 5:15 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 21 Comments
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said in new remarks on Saturday that he had spoken with the leaders of Britain, Poland, Turkey and several other nations as he sought to rally an “antiwar coalition” against Russia, the New York Times reports.
Some Russian Companies Expelled from Swift
February 26, 2022 at 5:12 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 37 Comments
“The Biden administration and its key European allies have reached a preliminary agreement to bar sanctioned Russian companies, oligarchs and government officials from using the SWIFT system, essentially barring them from international financial transactions — but without interfering with gas deliveries to European nations,”
the New York Times reports.
“The agreement, referred to in general terms by German officials and confirmed by American and European diplomats, falls short of a blanket cutoff of Russia from the financial messaging system, which some officials see as a nuclear option of sorts. Such a move would have essentially severed Russia from much of the global financial system.”
_______
It remains an option.
BERLIN—The European Union, U.K., the U.S. and Canada announced powerful new sanctions plans, including kicking some Russian banks off the Swift financial network and taking measures to paralyze the activities of Russia’s central bank over the Kremlin’s attack on Ukraine.
They can't afford supplies
Just in
President Biden said in an interview released on Saturday that Russian President Vladimir Putin is “producing the exact opposite effect that he intended,” saying that the Russian invasion into Ukraine has drawn the international community together.
“Not only [the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is] more unified, look what's going on in terms of Finland. Look what's going on in terms of Sweden. Look what's going on in terms of other countries,” Biden said in an interview with progressive political host Brian Tyler Cohen.
ADVERTISING
“I mean, he's producing the exact opposite effect that he intended. But all I know is that we have to stay the course with the rest of our allies,” Biden added
Curious changes in Putin's appearance pointed out by former CIA agent when asked about his health
Tom Boggioni
February 26, 2022
During an appearance on MSNBC on Saturday afternoon, a former CIA agent who spent time in Russia was asked about questions being raised about Russian President Vladimir Putin's physical and mental health, and admitted there appeared to be something different about him during his televised address before invading Ukraine.
Speaking with host Alex Witt, Tracy Walder -- who served in both the CIA's Counterterrorism Center and as Special Agent with the FBI -- was asked why the Russian strongman took the bold move to invade the neighboring country despite threats from western nations that his county would be subject to massive sanctions.
"I think for the vast majority of Putin's time in office, that's really how he's operated," she told the MSNBC host. "He served in East Germany, really when East Germany fell and the Soviet Union really fell apart in 1991 -- that's when he was there. And I think he views that as almost a personal defeat."
RELATED: Putin's 'bad decisions' and increasing 'isolation' is speeding up his downfall: historian
"He grew up at a time in Russia in the '50s, '60s, really at their -- really some of their strongest points, and I think that is -- he wants to restore Russia really back to that, and he looks at Ukraine right now as being occupied, almost, by a foreign country, and that foreign country being sort of the west's influence, if you will," she continued.
"Well, here's what French President Emmanuel Macron said recently about Putin, and it was reported in the Wall Street Journal," host Witt prompted. "That 'Mr. Macron noticed a change in Mr. Putin's demeanor when speaking to him on the phone over the course of the pandemic. He tended to talk in circles, rewriting history, a close aide to Mr. Macron said. if you look at the video of Putin talking to leaders across those long tables.' What does all this suggest to you, the level of isolation that he has endured due to his paranoia about Covid? "
"I completely agree with that," Walder replied. "That is one thing that I have noticed lately, even -- and I know this sounds superficial -- but if you really just look at pictures of him, which I tend to do quite a bit, the shape of his face has even changed. He looks different, he speaks differently, and he's crossed over to what I think I consider to be almost the dark side of history."
"Look, Putin was never a friend, if you will, but most of the things that he was doing was really sort of cyber, psychological operations, those kinds of things," she added. "Now he's really crossed over sort of that red line into, you know, this full military warfare, but then part of me wonders if we should be this surprised.
Sleepy Vladimir Putin
And just like that Roger checks another box on things he is clueless about.
Banking.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said in new remarks on Saturday that he had spoken with the leaders of Britain, Poland, Turkey and several other nations as he sought to rally an “antiwar coalition” against Russia.
Mr. Zelensky, who has given a series of impromptu speeches broadcast on social media since the invasion began on Thursday, said on Twitter that he had spoken with Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain about “new decisions to enhance the combat capabilities of the Ukrainian army.” He also said he discussed “concrete assistance” with the leaders of Georgia, the Czech Republic and Poland.
In a speech, Mr. Zelensky briefly described his talks with Prime Minister Mario Draghi of Italy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey. He said that he and Mr. Erdogan had discussed the importance of barring Russian warships from entering the Black Sea, on Ukraine’s southern coast.
Mr. Zelensky has for days called on Western nations to impose punishing sanctions on Russia and to send support to Ukraine’s forces. The United States and the European Union announced new sanctions on Russian elites, exports and financial institutions, and on Saturday the German government said it would send anti-tank weapons and surface-to-air missiles.
In his remarks, Mr. Zelensky continued to praise Ukraine’s resistance to Russian forces around the country.
“The world has seen Ukrainians are powerful, Ukrainians are brave,” he said. “We will fight as long as it takes to liberate the country.”
Mr. Zelensky has remained in Ukraine as Russian forces fight to take the capital. The U.S. State Department said in a statement that American officials were aware of his location and in contact with him, and that they would “continue to provide support to him and the democratically elected government of Ukraine.”
Show more
The Private Gun Owning Ukrainian Citizen are killing Ruskies.
Good, kill them all and let God Sort them out.
Against Summer Patriot Biden's advice.
"Mr. Zelensky has remained in Ukraine"
Oh oh, see why Americans own guns.
"Gun Control Law. Regulation of private firearms in Ukraine is ranked as permissive, rather than restrictive. Rifles and shotguns are allowed for hunting, target shooting, collection, protection of person or property and private security."
Now that the false narrative is collapsing, those responsible for this debacle should be asked to explain themselves. These people, however, are very cunning and they are already in the process of skilfully diverting the public’s attention to another place with a new narrative.
Today they are all talking about Vladimir Putin as the greatest threat to mankind. They hope to inflame people’s passions so they will not notice that Covid has somehow gone away even though a short while ago we were allegedly all in danger of dying from it.
Now Vladimir Putin is the greatest evil we have ever faced. And as the added bonus, they will be able to blame him for the inflation, depression and other catastrophes brought by two years of destructive Covid policies.
The Covid-19 crisis was a government-imposed disaster from beginning to the end. The virus – which was created by the Chinese state in cooperation with Dr Fauci and his friends – either escaped or was released from the biolab in Wuhan.
The Ukrainian crisis is likewise a government induced disaster. The feckless Joe Biden, Antony Blinken and their globalist cronies provoked Putin by pushing the idea of NATO at the doorstep of Russia. This was as unacceptable to the Russians in the same way that Mexico entering the Warsaw Pact would be unacceptable to the United States.
Putin asked for assurances that there will be no more NATO’s countries on the Russian border. This was not an unreasonable request, but they told him to go home and pound sand.
I just saw this: I hadn't seen it till just now: "James attacking religious freedom."
THANKS FOR THE VERY LARGE LAUGH!
Putin asked for assurances that there will be no more NATO countries on the Russian border. This was not an unreasonable request, but they told him to go home and pound sand.
________
I got a laugh from that too, even though rrb posted it.
Russia fears spur Nordic countries to consider joining
Until now, joining Nato has been seen as beyond the pale for the traditionally-neutral Sweden and Finland, but some feel Russia’s actions could change that.
February 26, 2022 4:04
Amid Vladimir Putin’s ongoing invasion into Ukraine, Russia has issued a veiled warning to Sweden and Finland as talks of potential Nato membership resurface.
As both countries weigh whether to join the alliance as a safeguard against Russian aggression, foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova warned: “Their accession to Nato can have detrimental consequences and face some military and political consequences.”
Nato members are committed to defending one another from an attack by a foreign power, and a condition of membership is spending two per cent of GEP on defence.
Ukraine was not a member of Nato, meaning Western powers have no obligation to send troops to their defence.
Why isn’t Finland in Nato?
Of the 27 EU members, Finland is one of just six that is not also a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) alongside Austria, Cyprus, Ireland, Malta and Sweden.
Finland is part of Nato’s Partnership for Peace programme, however, that allows flexible cooperation between the two parties and is generally seen as a trust-building outfit that may eventually lead to a full Nato membership.
But while Finland maintains the right to make up its own mind about joining Nato, it has also previously made clear its intentions not to join the alliance.
The Russian-Finnish ‘Winter War’ that took place from 1939 to 1940 created a strong belief of military prowess for Finland and, unlike most countries in Europe, it did not significantly reduce its military following the cold war.
Perhaps because it shares a 1,340km border with Russia, ensuring it can protect itself has since been a high priority for Finland and with it the belief that it does not need Nato to remain secure.
This was reiterated in a speech given by Finnish foreign minister Pekka Haavisto the day Russia invaded Ukraine, who said: “We have a security policy designed to withstand times of crisis.
“We will use the means at our disposal, including cooperation with Nato partners. After a crisis, we will see what further action is needed.”
However, Finland’s President Sauli Niinisto has stressed: “Finland’s room to manoeuvre and freedom of choice also includes the possibility of military alignment and of applying for Nato membership, should we ourselves so decide.”
Others, including former prime minister Alexander Stubb, has said that Russia is “pushing Finland closer to Nato membership” and that “at this rate, we have no other option but to join.”
ha ha ha ha @ POOTY POOT
Why isn’t Sweden in Nato?
Sweden has long maintained a neutral stance in world politics, though like Finland it joined Nato’s Partnership for Peace programme in 1994.
Sweden has held neutrality for 200 years and as it relies on trade with both the United States and Russia it has sought to stay that way.
The events of 2014 shifted this goal slightly, however, as Sweden began pouring resources back into its military after several acts of hostility from Russia.
Sweden reported multiple incursions into its territory with Russia believed to be at the helm. The invasion of Ukriane’s Crimean Peninsula also prompted Sweden to boost its military capabilities.
Public positivity towards Nato spiked as a result, and in 2019, data from Gothenburg University showed that roughly the same amount of people wanted to join Nato as those who didn’t.
Despite this, Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson made clear on Thursday that her country still believed in its neutrality.
She said: “Sweden has been alliance-free for an extremely long time. It has served Sweden’s interests well.”
However, she later added: “I want to be extremely clear. It is Sweden that itself and independently decides on our security policy line.”
In response to my article at the beginning of this thread, Ch said:
"Not sure why this has anything to do with religion."
___________
I will tell you, Ch. That article demonstrates how people can be led to believe that even someone as morally questionable as Putin can be embraced by guillable rightwing fanatics, fundamentalists, Bible thumping literalists, and Trump slurpers as a voice of authority for them.
Trump calling this devious man a "genius" will, I hope, increasingly be seen as one of the very most ignorant things he ever said. 'Genius' Putin grossly miscalculated this entire matter, and I hope that becomes ever clearer as time goes on, and serves to make conservatiave American Christians turn away from their gulliability and do some actual rational THINKING for a change.
More important than anything else. Remember when I mentioned the Nixon deal to separate Russian cooperation from China?
The Wall Street journal reports...
Fifty Years After Nixon’s Visit, China Tilts Back Toward RussiaThe anniversary of a trip that opened the door for Sino-U.S. ties is marked in the shadow of a Moscow-Beijing entente
By
James T. Areddy
Feb. 26, 2022 7:00 am ET
To neutralize Soviet power, U.S. President Richard Nixon engaged with China in February 1972. A half-century on, the question is how far China has veered back toward Moscow.
Mr. Nixon called his trip “the week that changed the world” and historians agree: The staunch anticommunist’s handshake with Mao Zedong set the foundation for wide-ranging U.S.-China links.
Five decades later, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine constitutes a test of the Sino-U.S. relationship unlike any other crisis since that visit, just as China emerges as a true economic and military rival of the U.S. Beijing has leaned toward Russia in the conflict, muddling its bedrock policy that national sovereignty and territorial integrity are paramount—a core part of a joint statement known as the Shanghai Communiqué released at the end of Mr. Nixon’s week in China, on Feb. 27.
Explosions, Airstrikes, Disbelief: Russia’s Attack on UkraineRussian forces advance toward Kyiv, while inhabitants of the capital city flee or brace for onslaught
Ukrainian defense fighters received weapons and ammunition in Kyiv on Friday.MIKHAIL PALINCHAK/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK
The document, which has formed the basis for U.S.-China relations since, left no doubt the two nations had major differences. But in what has widely been called a diplomatic masterstroke, it also showed how even adversaries could foster government, trade and people-to-people connections.
Yet today, relations that flourished since the diplomatic opening are fraying, a deterioration now accelerating with China’s embrace of Russia.
If we actually quit being a globalist power, China and Russia will try again to destroy our alliances with NATO and Australia and India and dominate the planet...with dictatorships. Even in Canada...
Our tribalistic instincts draw people to support strong characters like Trump and Putin...
The founding fathers feared that. This is why we need to vote against Republicans of this generation
Fifty Years After Nixon’s Visit, China Tilts Back Toward Russia - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/fifty-years-after-nixons-visit-china-tilts-back-towardrussia-11645876800
And another challenge from China!@!!!
SEOUL (Reuters) - Chinese President Xi Jinping stressed to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un the significance of cooperation between the two countries, North Korea's state media KCNA reported on Saturday.
In a message to Kim, Xi said China is ready to work, together with the Korean side, to steadily develop the China-DPRK relations of friendship and cooperation ... "under a new situation",
Korea could become a huge challenge to Biden
Trump loved Kim Jong Ung
Ch could have written this propaganda.
Protect Taiwan the Eisenhower way
By James Arlandson
With Putin's invasion of Ukraine, it is now clear that Xi believes that Taiwan, formerly known as Formosa, is ripe for the plucking. They have factored in President* Biden's obvious weakness and mental decline. It is a sure thing, as it has now been frequently observed by pundits and Trump himself, that if he were in office, Russian would not have invaded Ukraine. But he is not in office.
We can learn a lesson from another appropriately strong man, however.
Eisenhower, being just elected fresh after his victorious leadership of the Allies in the European theater of WWII, was strong. He understood the mentality of dictators when he stated "in response to a question at a press conference on Aug. 17 that 'any invasion of Formosa would have to run over the Seventh Fleet.'"
In other words, Eisenhower parked the Seventh Fleet in the waters between mainland China and Taiwan. If China were to invade, then it would have to run over this fleet. That statement came shortly after the Korean War ended on July 27, 1953. We had pushed back the communists to the 38th Parallel. Today, South Korea glows with prosperity, while North Korea sits in darkness. America meant business. Dictators and would-be dictators understood Eisenhower's strength and no doubt trembled or at least had second thoughts.
Men like Putin and Xi understand strong men, not postmodern, pink, feeble men like Biden. If anyone in his administration has any sense (and I doubt such a human exists there), he would advocate parking the Seventh Fleet, which is stationed off Japan and is now the largest forward-deployed fleet in the U.S. Navy. That would be a symbolic move with teeth in it.
But will the Biden administration act to protect Taiwan? Probably not, because we too can read left-wing human nature, and the American left gets easily befuddled and chaotic about foreign policy, just like our president* in his mental decline.
This is more evidence that the current Republican party is a party of conspiracy theories like you have been saying that the deep staters want to destroy the Orange Monster...
“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has much of the world transfixed and on edge. President Biden announced a new Supreme Court appointment who is unlikely to get any significant Republican support,” the New York Times reports.
“But at the Conservative Political Action Conference, the annual gathering of the right wing of American politics, the news convulsing the world seemed oddly distant. Instead, the focus was on cultural grievances, former President Donald J. Trump and the widespread sense of victimization that have replaced traditional conservative issues.”
I watched Trump speak out about the big lie and his aspiration for Putin...
I love reading the Three Socialist Stooges of CHT posts.
WASHINGTON — As President Biden tells the story, he was blunt with Vladimir V. Putin during a meeting in Moscow more than a decade ago. “I’m looking into your eyes, and I don’t think you have a soul,” Mr. Biden recalled telling the K.G.B. veteran. Mr. Putin smiled. “We understand one another,” he said.
Now, as the United States seeks to rally the world to counter Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Mr. Biden and Mr. Putin, the Russian president, are testing their understandings of one another as never before, trying to anticipate and outmaneuver each other with the fate of millions of people in the balance.
Not since John F. Kennedy and Nikita S. Khrushchev squared off over Berlin and Cuba have an American president and Russian leader gone eyeball to eyeball in quite such a dramatic fashion. While the two nuclear states are not poised for war directly with each other, as they were six decades ago, the showdown between Mr. Biden and Mr. Putin nonetheless holds enormous consequences for the world order that may be felt for years to come.
Mr. Biden has denounced Mr. Putin as “the aggressor” for invading Ukraine and vowed to make him “a pariah on the international stage.” To that end, Mr. Biden decided on Friday to impose sanctions on Mr. Putin himself, targeting him personally in a way that never happened even during the Cold War. Mr. Putin, for his part, is testing Mr. Biden’s mettle at a time when the Russians have concluded that the United States is divided and distracted at home, leaving little room for consensus.
“They’re coming from two different planets and it’s difficult to see where that intersects,” said Frank Lowenstein, who was on the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when Mr. Biden was its chairman. Mr. Biden believes in the rules-based system that Mr. Putin is trying to tear down. “He almost seems to personify the old order of things,” Mr. Lowenstein said of the president, “whereas Putin in some ways personifies the new lack of order.”
Over the last few weeks, Mr. Biden has spent endless hours with advisers and intelligence officials trying to figure out what is in Mr. Putin’s head and how to influence his calculations — without success so far.
The Russian leader has long harbored bitterness about Ukraine and denied that it was genuinely an independent state, but briefers told Mr. Biden that Mr. Putin seemed to grow more extreme in his thinking during his isolation over the last two years amid the coronavirus pandemic.
More than most world leaders, Mr. Putin has been a virtual recluse, keeping distant even from his own circle, as dramatized by video images in recent days of him sitting far across a room from other Russian officials or visiting foreign leaders. After more than two decades in power and nearing his 70th birthday, Mr. Putin has seemed more focused lately on his legacy, Mr. Biden’s team has told the president.
American officials are debating whether Mr. Putin has become unbalanced. “I wish I could share more, but for now I can say it’s pretty obvious to many that something is off with #Putin,” Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who is the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee and has access to some of the same intelligence as the president, wrote on Twitter on Friday night.
As Russian troops gathered near the Ukrainian border, Mr. Biden sought to engage Mr. Putin by getting on the telephone with him and sending every envoy he could to meet with any Russian official who would talk, but his call went nowhere and so did the other discussions.
The challenge is this: If Mr. Putin, in the later stages of his reign, is trying to rewrite history by reversing what he sees as the injustice of the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union and rebuilding the old empire, then traditional tools of deterrence and diplomacy may not be enough to get him to abandon such a messianic mission.
So Mr. Biden in recent weeks has emphasized solidarity with Europe to restore the unity of the trans-Atlantic alliance that frayed under President Donald J. Trump, who regularly criticized America’s friends more than he did Mr. Putin. That diplomatic spadework led both sides of the Atlantic to decide on Friday to target Mr. Putin himself by going after his money held abroad.
Mr. Biden is the fifth American president to deal with Mr. Putin, but the first to enter office with a history of involvement in setting policy toward Russia from his time as a senator and vice president. Unlike the previous four presidents, who each to different degrees hoped to forge better ties with Moscow, Mr. Biden never harbored illusions about making friends with Mr. Putin’s Russia, advisers said.
But he did aspire to establish a “stable, predictable relationship” with a tend-the-garden strategy of paying just enough attention to Mr. Putin to make him feel respected without wasting time on grand diplomacy that would never work, an approach that would allow Mr. Biden to focus on China.
In the face of a previous Russian troop buildup near Ukraine last spring, Mr. Biden agreed to a summit meeting with Mr. Putin in Geneva over the objection of some advisers who worried it was rewarding the Kremlin leader, who as it turned out was more intent on an unstable and unpredictable relationship.
If Mr. Biden underestimated his counterpart, Mr. Putin may have done the same. Perhaps influenced by the chaotic American troop withdrawal from Afghanistan last summer, Mr. Putin knew that the United States had no appetite to commit forces to Ukraine and may have calculated that Mr. Biden would not otherwise strongly resist Russian aggression, according to American and Russian analysts.
But while some critics believe he should be even tougher, Mr. Biden was unrelenting in calling out Mr. Putin’s plans to invade Ukraine in recent weeks and has rallied European allies into a more or less common front.
“Like Kennedy and Khrushchev, they’re such polar opposites in many way but they also share an understanding of the Cold War,” said Nina Khrushcheva, the great-granddaughter of the Soviet leader, who now teaches at the New School in New York. “And I think they do understand each other.”
Still, she added that they both may have miscalculated in thinking that their familiarity would lead to concessions when neither was actually in a position to deliver what the other really wanted. Mr. Biden wanted Mr. Putin to basically stay in his box and Mr. Putin wanted to expand the size of his box.
They are both children of the Cold War, raised, educated and married in an era when the specter of a planet-ending conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union hovered over everything. Yet they emerged from that twilight struggle with radically different views of how it ended, one celebrating it as a victory for freedom and democracy, the other mourning it as a disaster for his nation and people.
Where is the UN?
What are they doing?
Why did Affirmative Action VP Harris not secure the Peace?
They both come from modest upbringings and are products of their disparate systems, but they rose to power along distinct paths. Mr. Biden, 79, is a backslapping politician who relies on the force of his upbeat personality to drive diplomacy while Mr. Putin, 69, is a dour former intelligence agent who nurses resentments and conspiracy theories.
Mr. Putin never talks about his family, while Mr. Biden can hardly stop talking about his. Mr. Putin spent no time in elective politics before being plucked out of obscurity to succeed Boris N. Yeltsin, while Mr. Biden spent a lifetime running for office. They each have a penchant for macho exhibitionism, Mr. Putin posing for pictures shirtless or with tigers and Mr. Biden showing off his muscle cars and boasting that he would like to beat up Mr. Trump.
“Biden’s a retail politician and Putin is from the covert security services who runs with a mafia-like inner circle,” said Heather A. Conley, the president of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, a group that promotes trans-Atlantic relations. “Putin’s vision is of a grievance-filled history that he is seeking to overturn, and President Biden’s history is of an American victory at the end of the Cold War and the positive power of alliances and freedom and democracy.”
Biden and Putin, Children of the Cold War, Face Off in New Conflict https://nyti.ms/3JWoDrN
May sound crazy but calling it now:
Putin has invaded Ukraine not only for his desire to retake former Soviet nations but also to irrevocably damage Biden and the chances for Democrats in both the midterms and 2024.
This is an effort to install Republicans, one in particular, who are favorable towards Russia with a policy of isolationism. This will then turn to embolden Putin to continue his invasion of European nations.
According to the Democrats and their propagandist media, the rise in gas prices that began on January 20, 2021 is due to a Russian invasion of Ukraine that took place in February of 2022.
We know that the Democrats are using this conflict to escape blame for their policies, which are ruining the American economy. We know Biden has failed to prevent a Russian invasion. But the question remains: is Biden simply taking advantage of a crisis or did Biden have a role in creating the crisis?
I believe we could find answers in the transcript of Biden’s February 12, supposed hour-long phone conversation with Putin. The readout claims that “President Biden was clear that, if Russia undertakes a further invasion of Ukraine, the United States together with our Allies and partners will respond decisively and impose swift and severe costs on Russia.”
Coincidentally, this invasion is taking place just a week before Biden’s State of the Union speech. Is Biden colluding with Putin? The American people deserve to know. And if Biden has nothing to hide, the transcript will prove just how tough Biden is. It’s a win-win for Biden, unless he’s lying.
If this plays out like 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea, Putin will walk away with additional Ukrainian territory and the Democrats will claim that Biden heroically and masterfully prevented Putin from taking all of Ukraine. It will be spun by propagandists as a Biden victory. We’re already seeing indications of that now.
Both Roger and James posted about this.
"Biden must embrace oil and gas exploration. America was energy independent just a few years ago. The American president must do everything he can to make us independent again."
2020 the USA was .
2021 we gave that advantage away.
2022 will Biden/Harris get that Advantage Back?
Simply Wrong Roger ✔ another box of stupid.
"Mr. Putin never talks about his family"
Yes he had in interviews.
Post a Comment