President Joe Biden, 79, has pushed 69-year-old Russia Vladimir Putin to the brink, rejecting his call for legal guarantees that Ukraine will not join NATO, Biden has told Putin in a Zoom chat that he doesn’t honor any “red lines” or ultimatums when it came to sovereign states deciding whether or not they want to freely join any security group of their choice. That was apparently the exact wrong message to send to Putin, who feels NATO breathing down the neck of the Russian Federation. U.S. and European Union [EU] press continue to hype the Russian troop build-up on the Ukrainian border, now standing at around 95,000. Western press and intel officials worry about a Russian invasion in Eastern Ukraine, where pro-Russian separatists have sought to break away from the pro-Western Kiev government of 43-year-old Volodymyr Zelensky. Biden has the Western press egging him on.
Putin has told Biden he has no intention of invading Ukraine but would, if NATO threatens Russia with more military involvement, take defensive measures. “What the U.S. is doing in Ukraine is at our doorstep . . . And the should understand that we have nowhere further to retreat to. Do they thin we’ll just watch idly?” Putin asked to Russian military leaders today. “If the aggressive line of our Western colleagues continues, we will take adequate military-technical response measures and react harshly to unfriendly steps,” Putin said, putting Biden and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on notice that they’re treading on think ice. Western intel officials and the press have accused Putin of more aggression in Ukraine. They cite his March 1, 2014 invasion of Crimea as proof of Russian aggression. No one in Western governments or the press talk about the CIA-backed coup Feb. 22, 2014.
Western officials and the press must come clean as to what happened Feb. 22, 2014 when a CIA-backed pro-Western coup toppled the duly elected, Kremlin-backed government of Viktor Yanukovych. At the time 50-uear-old former heavyweight boxer Vitali Klitschko led a pro-Western coup, Putin hosted the Sochi Winter Games, timing the coup exactly when Putin was incapacitated with other duties. So when the Sochi Games ended Feb. 23, 2014, Putin mobilized the Russian army to invade Crimea to protect his naval base in Sevastopol, Crimea. No one Western press story or officials tells the truth of what happened Feb. 22, 2014. Western officials call Putin the aggressor when they know what happened. Had Klitschko not chased Yanukovych out of Kiev, Crimea would still be in Ukraine’s hands. Yet if you listen to the Western press, Putin was the aggressor in 2014.
Whether admitted to or not by the U.S. or Western press, NATO has provided Ukraine with military advisers and plenty of weapons, including Jevelin anti-tank missiles, armored Humvees, radios and unarmed drones, showing that NATO has indeed encroached on Russia sovereignty as Putin said. Russia Defense Minister Sergei Shoygu said NATO has 100 U.S. advisers in Ukraine, threatening Russia with chemical weapons. While flatly denied by the Pentagon, the fact remains that NATO supplies Ukraine with offensive weapons to counteract a Russian invasion. U.S. officials know that Ukraine doesn’t have the firepower to stop a Russian invasion, all the more reason the U.S. and NATO should not push Putin to the brink. Putin “just declared war on Ukraine (pretending it’s a war against the U.S. and his allies proved by us),” said Evelyn Frakas, deputy Secretary of State under Obama.
Frakas knows there’s been no declaration of war but makes incendiary statements much like Biden, White House and Western press. “Ukraine didn’t invade Russia,” said Alina Polyakova, President of the Center for European Policy Analysis. “Russia has been the aggressor in very recent conflict—but it serves a purpose, justifying military aggression to the Russian people. Polyakova forgets what happened Feb. 22, 2014, a week before Putin move the Russian military into Crimea. Kiev was toppled by a CIA-backed, pro-Western coup led by Klitschko and others. Polyakova and other pro-Western Russian experts back the U.S. getting into a war with Russia, much like Zelensky who’d like to take Crimea back by force. Before Biden is pushed to the brink by his State Department war hawks, he should consider the consequences to the U.S. military—and economy—of a war with Russia.
Someone in the Western Alliances needs to give Biden a reality check before it’s too late. Putin had valid reasons for invading Crimea March 1, 20014 to protect his naval base in Sevastopol, Crimea. Calling Putin the aggressor doesn’t help defuse the current situation where Putin looks for legal guarantees that NATO will stay away from Ukraine. U.S. EU and NATO must accept the fact that a sizable portion of Russian speaking people in Eastern Ukraine want no part of Kiev’s pro-Western government. Whether some 14,000 Ukrainians have lost their lives in the last seven years, that doesn’t mean that Zelensky should do everything possible to resolve his differences with Putin, not suck the U.S., EU and NATO into a military conflict with Russia. Ukraine has undeniable conflict in the Donbass region, not caused by Putin but by Russian-speakers wanting no part of Kiev.
A
