Meeting with 43-year Ukrainian Zelensky at the White House, 78-year-old President Joe Biden antagonized 68-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin. Zelensky’s been pushing for NATO membership, hoping to convince the Transatlantic Alliance to adopt Ukraine and defend it against Russian aggression in Southeastern Ukraine. Zelensky was part of the debacle that drove House Democrats to impeach 75-year-old President Donald Trump for holding back military funds in exchange for Zelensky digging up dirt on Biden and his 50-year-old son Hunter. When Joe was Vice President he headed up former President Barack Obama’s Ukraine anti-corruption task force. Trump found it astonishing that Joe, while VP, landed Hunter an $83,000 month job on a corrupt Ukrainian energy company board, Burisma Energy. Hunter had now experience in the energy industry.
Now Biden meets with Zelensky after he met with great fanfare with Putin in Geneva June 16 for a summit to help defuse growing tensions between the U.S. and Russian. Biden started his presidency ripping Putin, calling him a “soulless killer,” March 18, driving U.S.-Russian relations to 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis lows. Biden did the same thing to China, sending 58-year-old Secretary of State Antony Blinken and 44-year-old Jake Sullivan to Anchorage, Alaska March 18 to meet with a high end Chinese delegation. Instead of finding common g round, Blinken and Sullivan accused Beijing of genocide against Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang province, turning the get-to-know-you summit into diplomatic food fights. So when Biden hosts Zelensky at the White House promising foreign aid to Ukraine, it slaps Putin in the face. Biden hit U.S. foreign relations with a wrecking ball since taking office.
Zelensky wants Biden to push NATO Director-General Jens Stoltenberg to accept Ukraine into NATO membership. Putin has warned Ukraine and NATO that any attempt to add Ukraine into NATO would be met with severe consequences, including possible annexation of the Donbass region of southeastern Ukraine, where pro-Russian separatists seek to join the Russian Federation. Zelensky has ranted-and-raved since Putin’s March 1, 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, rallying the U.S. and European Union into slapping the Kremlin with punitive economic and trade sanctions. Putin reacted harshly to a Feb. 22, 2014 CIA-backed coup in Kiev that toppled the Kremlin-backed government of Viktor Yanukovych. When the pro-Western coup took place led by 50-year-old former World Heavyweight Champion boxer Vitali Klitschko. Putin defended Russian interests in Crimea.
Zelensky knows that since the Soviet Union, Russia has housed its warm water fleet in Sevastopol, Crimea. Putin watched the coup take place while he hosted the Sochi Winter Olympics. When the games ended, Putin acted decisively to defend Russia interests, annexing the strategy Black Sea peninsula. Since annexing Crimea, Ukraine claims its lost 14,000 citizens to skirmishes in the Donbass region with Russian separatists seeking independence from Ukraine. Putin has offered an olive branch to Ukraine but, so far, has refused to give back Crimea. Biden’s meeting today with Zelensky promising him military and humanitarian aid won’t go over well with Putin, bound to cause even more tensions with the Kremlin. NATO’s Stoltensberg is smart enough to know not to add Ukraine to NATO. Instead of dealing with the fallout from the Afghan debacle, Biden chose more diversion.
Ukraine’s a sore point with Russia because Putin knows that Zelensky is trying to weaken Putin’s influence in the Black Sea. Biden doesn’t see the big picture that Putin can be far more helpful to U.S. national security around the globe than Ukraine. Ukraine adds nothing to U.S. foreign policy other than Zelensky trying his utmost to seduce the U.S. and NATO into a shooting war with the Russian Federation. NATO’s Stoltenberg understands the consequences of adding Ukraine to NATO, knowing that Putin would retaliate, probably seizing Ukraine’s Donbass region. Whether admitted to or not, the European Union wants no part of any shooting war with the Russian Federation. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, 67, has just completed an $11 billion deal with Putin to supply natural gas to Germany for the foreseeable future, wanting no part of any armed conflict with the Russian Federation.
Biden fails to see the big picture with foreign policy, especially seeing that making deals with Ukraine drive a bigger wedge with the Kremlin. Instead of consulting with Zelensky, who’s looking to suck the U.S. and NATO into armed conflict with Russia, Biden should spend more time getting on the same page as Russia and China, to the extent he can find common ground. Zelensky has nothing to offer United States or the European Union, only more antagonism with Moscow. If Zelensky wants to return Crimea to Ukraine, he needs to establish more diplomacy with Russia, offering to do business with Russia on a number of fronts. Talking only about joining NATO or getting more military aid from the U.S. won’t get Crimea back anytime soon. Only by working with Putin on common ground can Zelensky build the kind to rapport needed to eventually return Crimea back to Ukraine.
