Hoping to quell a slide in global financial markets, 79-year-old President Joe Biden and 69-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to another summit, giving some hope that Ukraine will not start WW III. Biden and Putin last met June 16, 2021 in Geneva, for an uneventful summit that ended quickly without any progress on Ukraine or anything else. U.S. and foreign media hope things will be different this time around with foreign leaders praying that war doesn’t break out on the European Continent. French President Emmanuel Macron, 44, spent two hours on phone with Putin today begging him for a diplomatic fix to the Ukraine standoff. “[The summit] can only be held if Russia des not invade Ukraine,” said a statement from Macron, saying “each accepted the principle of such a summit,” said Elysee Palace statement, hoping for a breakthrough.
Macron has been working behind the scenes with a series of phone calls with Putin to help find a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine crisis. For his part, Biden has done almost nothing to show the kind of flexibility needed to find common ground with Putin, so far ending in only threats of crippling economic sanctions. “President Biden accepted in principle a meeting with President Putin . . . if an invasion hasn’t happened,” White House Presss Secretary Jen Psaki said. Biden has been saying for the last five weeks almost daily that Putin would invade Ukraine any day now. Meeting on Thursday, Feb. 25, 59-year-old Secretary of State Antony Blinken and 72-year-old Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov agreed to work out the summit details. Biden faces more pressure now to negotiate with Putin an acceptable fix to what the White House has called “non-starters” about Putin’s security demands.
Biden and his national security team have been applying relentless pressure to Putin to remove his troops from the Ukraine border, something Putin has resisted until the White House agrees to compromise on security guarantees. Macron said today that Putin agreed on “the need to favor a diplomatic solution to the ongroing crisis and to do everything to achieve one,” Elysee Palance stated today. Before Wall Street gets too excited, the Kremlin said Putin blamed Ukraine for the dangerous escalation. Putin wants any talks to be in the Normandy format, with Franco-German moderation, something Ukraine rejected in the past, especially Ukraine’s desire to join NATO. European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the EU would not agree to sanctions against Moscow unless it invaded Ukraine. Ukraine’s 44-year-old President Volodymyr Zelensky asked that sanctions be applied now.
Hope of a Biden-Putin summit comes with certain risks, especially if Biden isn’t willing to negotiate a mutually beneficial deal with Putin. Biden has spent the last five weeks telling the world almost daily that Putin plans to invade Ukraine. Putin, on the other hand, has reassured the press that he has no intention of invading Ukraine. Listening to Biden accuse Putin of an “imminent” invasion over the last five weeks ratcheted up tensions to the brink of war. Putin has asked the White House for legally-binding security guarantees, including banning Ukraine and Georgia from ever joining NATO. Biden and NATO have ignored Putin’s requests, especially to stop supplying Ukraine lethal weapons. So for any summit to work, Biden would have to agree to security guarantees that include stopping the flow of lethal arms into Ukraine. Over the last five weeks, Biden rejected all of Putin’s demands, setting up the current collision with a war in Europe.
If Biden isn’t prepared to deal with Putin’s security requests, nothing will change on the Ukraine border. No major intel agency in the EU or Europe has said the Putin is ready to invade Ukraine. Only the White House Black Ops operation makes up intel to bluff Putin into making concessions. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov, a good barometer of Putin’s mood, said “there was no point of Russia attacking someone,” urging U.S. and EU government to stop the anti-Russian hysteria. “But let’s remind that throughout history, Russia has never attacked anyone. And Russia, which has survived so many wars, is the last country in Europe that wants to talk at all, even to say the word, “war,” Peskov said. If Peskov speaks for Putin, it’s clear the White House has waged a Black Ops smear campaign to turn the world against Russia. It backfired when Putin won the support Feb. 4 of 68-year-old Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Before Biden flops at another summit with Putin, he’d better know what he’s prepared to offer in any meaningful negotiation. Putin won’t accept Biden continuing to threaten the Russian Federation with crippling economic sanctions. Putin wants a two-way street where the U.S. and NATO own the extent to which they’ve encroached on Russian national security, supplying lethal weapons to Russia’s border states. All signs point to a diplomatic solution but only if the White House is willing to play ball with Moscow. “We would all not just prefer, we desire, we believe that it is in the best interest for all that here is a diplomatic end to the moment,” said Vice President Kamala Harris, throwing her weight behind diplomacy. Pushing for diplomacy, Harris must accept that the U.S. can’t ignore Putin’s request for legally-binding security arrangements that protect Russia’s national security.
