When 79-year-old President Joe Biden talks on Zoom conferencing with 69-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin tomorrow, it will be the first talk since Geneva June 18, a brief summit that ended almost before it got started. Biden has difficulty confronting Putin in person, in large part because the president’s cognitive challenges make confrontation all the more difficult. Biden has warned Putin about this-and-that all to no avail, with Putin largely ignoring his warnings. Tomorrow may be no different with Biden wanting assurances from Putin that his troop build-up on the Ukraine border won’t result in a full-scale invasion. Biden has warned Putin that another invasion and land-grab in Ukraine would trigger far-reaching economic sanctions do more damage to the Russian Federation. Biden finds himself in the unenviable position of having to threaten Putin to get him to back down.
Reconnaissance photos of the Ukrainian-Russian border show a Russian tactical battle groups, including personnel and heavy equipment including tanks, artillery, armored personnel carriers, etc. Western analysts fear that Putin is preparing for a full-scale invasion sometime in early 2022. While completely speculative, Biden plans to confront Putin tomorrow on his plans in amassing such large numbers of troops on the Ukrainian border. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been asking to join NATRO since he took office May 20, 2019. Zelensky knows that joining NATO would be a red line for Moscow, prompting Putin to annex more Ukrainian territory. “I would not downplay this,” said Jeffrey Edmonds, a former CIA military analyst and Russian expert at C.N.A., a national security think tank. No one knows how to interpret Putin’s military buildup near the Ukraine border.
Biden has had a difficult time confronting Putin about any subject, let alone his right to station as many troops and hardware as he wants inside the Russian border. “The troop buildup is pretty significant,” said Edmonds. “I think you always have to assume it’s a very real possibility,” said Jim Townsend, a former Pentagon and NATO official and security expert at the Center for a New American Security. U.S. analysts think the worse, without second-guessing Putin’s intent in building up forces on the border. With Biden threatening more economic sanctions, possibly military assistance for Ukraine,, Putin had no choice but to counter Zelensky’s overtures to the U.S. and NATO. Zelensky wants Putin to return the Crimean Peninsula to Ukraine, something he seized March 1, 2014. No Western officials, including Biden, admit that a Feb. 22, 2014 CIA-backed coup toppled the Kremlin-backed Kiev government of Viktor Yanukovych.
So when it comes to understanding Putin’s March 1, 2014 annexation of the Crimean Peninsula, Biden does not acknowledge that the pro-Western coup prompted Putin to annex Crimea. Russia houses its warm water fleet in Savastopol, Crimea, requiring its naval base protection. Western officials don’t acknowledge that that the CIA-backed coup forced Putin’s hand. When he says to the press he wants no more Ukrainian territory, he telling the truth. At the same time, he won’t sit idly by while Ukraine joins NATO or wins promises to protect its sovereignty and territorial integrity. Michael Kofman, Director of Russian studies at C.N.A. doesn’t think Russia will invade Ukraine and doesn’t “think there is going to be a Russian military operation in the coming days of and weeks, adding that he’s “very worried looking into the coming months and toward this winter. “
When Biden and Putin have their tête é tête tomorrow, Biden should spend more time listening, less time threatening or warning Putin about what would happen it he invades Ukraine. Putin has told the press he has no intention of taking more Ukrainian territory, meaning that the troop buildup does not mean that an invasion is imminent. Building up the troops on the Russian side of the Ukrainian border was designed to tell Kiev to stay away from NATO and the U.S. When you consider the U.S. has no strategic interest in Ukraine, it’s maddening that Biden’s talking about more sanctions or possibly military action to stop a Russian invasion. Putin wants assurances from Biden that NATO will stay away from the Black Sea region, certainly not provide Ukraine military assistance. Whatever the size of the troop build up, Biden should see it as Russia’s guarantee that NATO will stay away.
Questions have been raised about Biden’s capacity to deal with urgent geopolitical spots around the globe, especially when they involve Russia and China. When it comes to Ukraine, Biden must conclude, like he did in Afghanistan Aug. 31, that there’s no justification for keeping U.S. troops on the ground. When it comes to Ukraine, Zelensky must be told that while the U.S. sympathizes with his problems with the Kremlin, Washington has no intent to committing U.S. troops to defend Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Biden said Friday that he doesn’t heed Russia’s red lines when it comes to Ukraine. No matter how it’s interpreted, statements like that provoke the Kremlin wanting the U.S. to put-up-or-shut-up when it comes to taking on Russia. Any objective analysis shows that there’s no U.S. national security interest in Ukraine, telling Biden to defuse the current standoff.
