Concerned about a Russian troop buildup on the Ukrainian border, a group of former Soviet satellites led by Romania met on Zoom May 9 with 78.-year-old Joe Biden, expressing concerns about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s encroachment on NATO security. Romania told Biden that they see Russia as a regional threat to democracy and independence in the Black Sea region asking Biden for more U.S. military support. Called the Bucharest Nine, [B9] including Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovenia, all expressed growing concerns about Russian encroachment. At the time of the B9 meeting with Biden May 9, Biden and his 58-year-old Secretary of State Antony Blinken were in full-on anti-Russia mode, complaining about such irrelevant things as treatment of 44-year-old jailed Russian dissident Alexi Navalny.
Biden spent the first six months of his presidency slamming Putin for various human rights abuses and his aggressive actions near the Ukrainian border. U.S., NATO and European Union [EU] expressed concerns about what they saw as Russian aggression on the Ukrainian border, posing a threat to the NATO trans-Atlantic alliance and the independence of the B9 since the 1991 end of the Soviet Union. “During [the B9] summit, the message of President Joe Biden was very strong as far as the commitment to Article 5, the importance of making the trans-Atlantic bond even stronger . . .” Biden told Rsomanian Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu. Biden had antagonized Putin so much there were concerns in the EU he was getting dangerously close to a military confrontation with the Russian Federation. EU officials, led by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, expressed no interest.
When Biden pushed things to the brink harping on Putin’s Ukraine’s military buildup and treatment of Alexi Navalny, his advisers urged him to defuse tensions and hold a Geneva summit to put U.S.-Russian relations back on track. Much of the tensions expressed by the B9 was caused by 43-year-old Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky who kept pushing Biden and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg for NATO membership and military help. Russian Federation was kicked out of the G7 March 24, 2014 for invading and annexing Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula March 1, 2014. While the B9 likes to talk about Putin’s aggression, they don’t want to admit that a Feb. 22, 2014 pro-Western coup in Kiev was backed by CIA. Putin, who has his Sevastopol navy base in Crimea, felt threatened. Putin hosted the Sochi Winter Olympics during the coup, reacted harhly March 1.
Yet the B9 continues to complain about Putin even though a pro-Western coup toppled the duly elected Kremlin-backed government of Viktor Yanukovych. So when 55-year-old Petrol Poroshenko took over as Ukrainian president June 14, 2014, it was without any Russian support. Putin’s decision to annex Crimea was purely defensive, realizing the Poroshenko, now controlled by NATO, could threaten Russia’s warm water fleet in Sevastopol. As time wore on and Western demands were ignored to return Crimea to Ukraine, the U.S. and EU slapped the Russian Federation with economic sanctions. When the last economic sanctions hit March 4, U.S. relations with Russia hit rock bottom, until Biden called Putin as “soulless killer” March 16, leaving the EU aghast, wanting no part in Biden’s overt aggression. EU, especially Germany, has close economic ties with Moscow.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, 67, a strong influence in the Brussels-based EU, wanted no part of Biden’s aggression. Merkel spent years working out the contours of the $12 billion Nord Stream 2 Pipeline, bringing vital natural gas from Russia to Germany. Biden irked EU officials after taking office, telling the EU that “America is back,” a political slap on former President Donald Trump’s “America First” foreign policy. But the EU wanted no part of letting Biden get the EU into a regional war with the Russian Federation over Ukraine. Ukraine’s Zelensky kept pushing for NATO membership, just like the B9, especially Romania, asked the U.S. for more U.S. troops. When Biden met with Putin in Geneva June 16, he reversed all the hostile rhetoric, pledging to Putin that he would work toward restoring a “stable and predictable” U.S.-Russian relationship.
Biden has switched gears on his May 9 commitment to the B9, realizing that, in the big picture, it’s far more important to U.S. national security to have a good working relationship with the Russian Federation. B9 complained about Russia’s buildup on the Ukrainian border but said nothing to Zelensky to stop pushing for NATO membership. Zelensky and his Foreign Minister Kuleb Dmytro were upset with Stoltenberg when he extended no offer to Ukraine to join NATO. With Biden committing to improving relations with Moscow, the B9 is on their own to figure out how to get along with the Russian Federation. Zelensky must stop trying to get NATO to fight his battles and figure out a way to get along with Moscow. No one in NATO or the EU is interested in defending Ukraine against “Russian aggression,” when Kiev’s foreign policy pushes things to the brink.
