Thinking that he and the so-called allies are in charge, 79-year-old President Joe Biden enters last-ditch discussions over Ukraine in Geneva with the exact wrong message, threatening 69-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin. Biden has been threatening Putin with crippling economic sanctions since meeting him in Geneva June 16, all over a Russian troop build-up on the Ukrainian border. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, 43, has been begging NATO for membership and protection against a possible Russian invasion of the Russian-speaking Donbass region in Eastern Ukraine. Zelensky claims a protracted military operation from pro-Russian separatists have killed some 14,000 Ukrainians over the last eight years, a number impossible to verify. What’s known for sure is that Zelensky would do anything, including war with Russia, to return the Crimean Peninsula.
Ukraine lost the Crimea Peninsula to Russia March 1, 2014 after a pro-Western, CIA-backed coup toppled the Kremlin-backed government of Viktor Yanukovych. Putin moved swiftly to annex Crimea once the CIA-backed coup toppled the Kremlin-backed government. Putin had his Sevastopol navy base in Crimea to protect, seizing the territory in response to the coup, realizing that NATO would be welcomed by the new pro-Western government led in Kiev by former heavyweight boxer Vitali Klitschko. But if you listen to the Western interpretation of events, Putin invaded Crimea out of pure naked aggression. So when the U.S. delegation led by 59-year-old Antony Blinken heads to Geneva they start with the wrong attitude, threatening Putin with crippling economic sanctions if he doesn’t capitulate. Biden’s threats guarantee failure from the outset of otherwise hopeful discussions.
Biden administrations officials are open to discussing about scaling back troop and missile deployments in Eastern and Central Europe as long a Russia is willing to do the same. But the real issue in Ukraine involves what happened Feb. 22, 2014 when a CIA-backed coup toppled the Kremlin-backed Yanukovych government. Entering Geneva threatening Putin with crippling economic sanctions is the equivalent of an “act of war,” prompting the most defensive type of response, including breaking off diplomatic relations. Biden and Blinken should enter Geneva on a level playing field, not threatening Russia with crippling economic sanctions. Letting underlings speak to the press of what the U.S. and its allies are prepared to do to Russia is outrageous before any conversations have even started. What kink of cockamamie diplomacy is Biden engaged in representing U.S. national security.
When you consider that Biden has pushed the world to the brink with Russia over Ukraine it’s absolutely astonishing, since Ukraine has zero national security significance to the United States. Biden’s threats against Putin over Ukraine are equally absurd over his demands that Putin release Russian dissident Alexi Navalny from prison. It shows a pattern that no matter what Putin does, Biden finds fault, some reason to sacrifice U.S.-Russia relations. But with the world a big, dangerous place, the U.S. needed a workable, practical relationship with Moscow to meet many of the emerging challenging around the globe. Unlike Zelensky, who has zero influence around the globe, Putin has been on the the world stage for decades and carries considerable influence. So when Bidien’s willing to destroy U.S. Russia relations over a nothing country like Ukraine, it makes you question his fitness for the White House.
U.S. and NATO officials, led by Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, have already said publicly before Geneva that they won’t restrict any nation’s future attempt at membership. Putin has asked the U.S. and NATO to offer legal guarantees that Ukraine can never receive NATO membership, something neither the U.S. nor NATO are prepared to make. But instead to squelching from the outset any open discussion of Putin’s concerns about NATO expansion into Ukraine or other former Soviet satellites, the White House should have played its cards differently. There was no need to send a bunch of negative trial balloons out before any of the Geneva discussions opened. Everything should be on the table for both sides as they figure out a way to de-escalate the situation in Ukraine. U.S. negotiators should ask themselves why the Ukraine situation is worth destroying U.S.-Russian relations.
Putin has stated repeatedly for the record his concerns about NATO encroachment in Ukraine and other former Soviet satellites. But for U.S. national security, there’s nothing strategic about Ukraine that’s worth the U.S. going to war against the Russian Federation. Threatening Putin with crippling economic sanctions is exactly the wrong approach. “Instead, we would adopt a ‘star high’, stay high’ approach in which we—in coordination with our allies and partners—would immediately impose severe and overwhelming costs on Russia’s economy, including it financial system and sectors deemed critical to the Kremlin,” said a senior unnamed Biden official. What kind of diplomacy is this before the start of Geneva? Threats like this are tantamount to an “act of war,” something no one in the EU or anywhere else accepts, especially over developing country like Ukraine.
