Meeting in Geneva today for some high-stakes diplomacy, 59-year-old Secretary of State Antony Blinken and 72-year-old Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met face-to-face to try to de-fuse tensions in Ukraine. Russian officials have difficulty digesting all the fake news coming out of the West, leading 79-year-old President Joe Biden to declare at a lengthy press conference Jan. 19 that he throught Russia would move to invade Ukraine. Biden, of course, offered pure conjecture about what Russia would do with Ukraine, something Western officials and press say is an imminent invasion. Listening to White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, 43, parrot the same media propaganda reminds all the that Ukraine situation is largely manufactured by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who’s been begging NATO for membership, hoping to get back the Crimean Peninsula.
Whatever happened in Geneva today, Blinken and Lavrov agreed to keep talking, a good sign when it comes to finding a diplomatic solution to the standoff in Ukraine. U.S., European Union [EU] and NATO officials want Putin to withdraw some 100,000 troops positioned inside Russia near the Ukrainian border. Western officials can’t dictate to Putin what happens inside his own borders. Blinken said the U.S. and its partners were all aligned in slapping Moscow with crippling economic sanctions if they breach, no matter how noticeable, the Ukraine border. “We’ve been clear—if any Russian military forces move across Ukraine’s border that’s a renewed invasion. It will be met with swift, severe and united response from the United States and our allies,” Blinken told the press after meeting with Lavrov. Blinken doesn’t have a seamless plan of what the Western Alliance would do.
Blinken said before his meeting with Lavrov that the U.S. and its partners could block Russia from the Swift Banking System governing international banking wire transfers. German Foreign Minister Analeena Baebock said banning Moscow from the Swift Banking System would not happen that easily. Biden the Blinken have issued too many threats to Moscow to stop their own propaganda about Russian invading Ukraine. Biden, Blinken and others foreign heads-of-state and diplomats all believe their own propaganda about an imminent Russian invasion. Biden certainly believes his own rhetoric, hyping the notion of new Russian invasion. When you think of what happened with Putin invading Crimea March 1, 2014, it was an entirely different situation. No Western official or the press wants to admit that a Feb. 22, 2014 CIA-backed coup in Kiev causes Putin to annex Crimea.
When it comes to Ukraine today, there’s no benefit to Russian invading Ukraine, other than foreign states and the press whipping the public into a frenzy. Reports from Ukraine don’t think a Russian invasion is imminent at all. Yet if you listen to Biden or the Western press, you’d think an invasion was a done deal. Well, now we know fake news continues to dominate on both sides of the Atlantic. Putin has said repeatedly that he has no intent of invading Ukraine, now or in the future. When he seized Crimea March 1, 2014, it was to protect his Sevastopol naval base from a CIA takeover of the Kremlin-backed Kiev government. White House officials have so much anti-Russian bias they don’t trust anything Russia says, only believing their own propaganda. When it comes to Ukraine, there’s noting in it for Putin to seize one inch of Ukrainian territory because it gets Moscow nothing.
Blinken’s deluded into thinking that all his talk of crippling economic sanctions dissuades Putin for one second when it comes to Ukraine. Putin thinks for himself and knows there’s no strategic benefit to Moscow seizing on inch of Ukrainian territory. Only Zelensky continues to push the fake “false flag” theory, that Putin seeks any incident to justify a Ukraine invasion. Putin would not invade Ukraine because there’s nothing to gain for the Russian Federation. Putin and Lavrov don’t understand the extent of Western fake news about, manufacturing one lie about Russia after another. So when the Western press says it’s “imminent” that Russia plans to invade Ukraine, it’s the height of Western fake news. Lavrov asked Blinken to produce a written response to Putin’s demands that NATO not offer membership to Ukraine, but, more importantly, stop supplying lethal arms to Ukraine.
When it comes to the Western press, there’s little the public can trust the fake news, since it’s driven by a definite agenda to discredit the Russian Federation. Putin’s often accused by the West of a brutal anti-democratic crackdown inside Russia. Whether that’s true or not, Putin has led the Russian Federation for the last 22 years, having keen insights into how the Western alliance operates. Whatever response Blinken gives to Lavrov, it won’t satisfy Russia’s demands to stop more NATO encroachment into the former Soviet republics. Putin wants NATO to stay out of Russia’s backyard, whether it’s Ukraine or the Crimean Peninsula. Ukraine’s Zelensky wants the U.S. and NATO to fight his battles with the Kremlin. If Zelensky wants Crimea back, he needs to stop exploiting the U.S. and NATO and spend more time satisfying whatever requirements makes sense to Putin.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnllineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
