National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, 45, threatened 69-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin with “catastrophic consequences,” escalating the rhetoric after Putin said all options were on the table Sept. 21, irking U.S. officials. Putin’s been provoking Biden, hinting, if backed into a corner, that he would used nuclear weapons. Sullivan’s comments about “catastrophic consequences,” are the same kind of threat made by Biden before war started, telling Putin he would cripple the Russian economy with the most drastic economic sanctions every applied to any country. Biden imposied a Russian oil and natural gas embargo in concerts with the EU. Biden’s sanctions made good headlines but didn’t stop Putin from invading Ukraine Feb. 24. Biden, Sullivan and 59-year-old Secretary of State Antony Blinken threatened Putin for months before Putin invaded Ukraine.
Biden used his time Sept 21 at the U.N. General Assembly excoriating Putin for starting the Ukraine War, telling the General Assembly that the U.S. would continue to support Ukraine for as long as it takes, announcing that he’s giving Ukraine another $1.9 billion in military aid, letting Putin know he’s in for the fight of his life. Putin and Kremlin officials know that the war is not between Kiev and Moscow, it’s between the U.S. and Russia. Biden’s proxy war against the Russian Federation presents problems for U.S. foreign policy, no longer counting on Russia to help deal with hot spots around the globe. Biden trashed U.S. Russian relations, turning U.S. diplomacy to Ukraine, even though Kiev has no strategic value to the U.S. Listening to Sullivan, you’d think he’s threatening Putin with nuclear retaliation, something bound to antagonize the Kremlin into a war-like state.
Biden’s abysmal diplomacy with Russia and China has left U.S. national security in the worst state since WW II. Biden has funded a U.S. proxy war against the Kremlin and said Sept. 18 he’d send U.S. troops to defend Taiwan in the event of a Communist Chinese invasion. So, what does Biden think Ukraine’s 44-year-old President Volodymyr Zelensky thinks when he hears Biden saying he’d send U.S. troops to Taiwan? Zelensky begged Biden over the last seven months to stop Russia’s massacre, something he called genocide in Ukraine, by committing U.S. and NATO troops, asking more than once for a no-fly zone. Biden said March 11, three weeks after the Ukraine invasion, he would not commit U.S. troops to Ukraine because Kiev is not part of NATO. Biden said repeatedly that he considers Ukraine part of Europe and fits into NATO’s defense policy perfectly.
Sullivan refused to tell the press what he meant by “catastrophic consequences” for Russia, saying he spoke with his Russian counterparts to elaborate on what would happen in Moscow uses nukes on Kiev. Sullivan said he “spelled out in greater detail exactly what that would mean,” Sullivan told the press, unwilling to share any real details. But if Sullivan told 72-year-old Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that the U.S. would retaliate in kind, he’s taken the Ukraine War to a whole new level. Remember, the White House has sold the Ukraine War as defending Kiev’s right to independence as a sovereign state. U.S. officials got bent out of shaped Sept. 20 when Putin announced he’d call up 300,000 Russian conscripts to manage what promise a long drawn-out war of attrition. U.S. officials have scrambled to tell the world that U.S. is in the war for the long haul.
White House officials categorically reject Putin’s attempt at independence votes in Russia-controlled territory, including Kherson, Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia, all strategic areas captured by Russia. If you talk to Zelensky, he denies that Russian controls any territory in Ukraine. But since the war began Feb. 24, Zelensky has lost 25% of Ukraine’s sovereign territory, including the entire Black Sea coast and all its strategic ports. Biden and Zelensky deny that they’ve lost one inch of sovereign territory to the Kremlin. Yet any respectable map of Russian-controlled territory shows the Kremlin controlling Ukraine’s entire Black Sea coast. Instead of figuring out how to push Ukraine to the Peace table, Biden and Sullivan make more threatening statements pushing back Putin at Putin’s Sept. 22 remarks that if boxed in the Russian Federation would use all weapons, including nukes..
Biden and Zelensky have spent the last two weeks in open public celebrations over Putin’s decision to withdraw has forces from the Kharkiv region on the Northeast. But no one in the West questions whether it’s a strategic move by Putin not the great victory boasted about in Kiev and Washington. All you hear in the West is about Putin’s army crumbling, unable to sustain the brutal U.S. proxy war that’s cost so many Russian lives. “This is not a bluff,” Putin said about the Kremlin using nukes if backed into a corner. “Putin remains intent . . . . on wiping out the Ukraine people that he does not believe have a right to exist. So, He’s going to keep coming and we have to keep coming with weapons, ammunition and intelligence and all the support we can provide,” Siullivan said, mentioning nothing about any plans to move the conflict to the peace table. With an attitude like that, it’s no wonder there’s zero progress on a ceasefire.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
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