Speaking in Helsinki, Finland, to NATO’s newest member, 60-year-old Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Russia is “significantly worse off today than it was before the full-scaled invasion” of Ukraine Feb. 24, 2022. Blinken had to stick it to the Kremlin publicly, boasting about all the cash-and-lethal-weapons given, as Blinken says, for degrading the Russian military. In joining NATO April 4 becoming the 31st member, something Ukraine hopes to follow at the earliest possible time. Russian President Vladimir Putin cited Ukraine’s call to join NATO that partly prompted the Feb. 24, 2022 invasion. By far the biggest reason for the invasion involved neutralizing the growing threat from Ukraine from U.S. leathal arms. Finland lived through the Cold War with its 1,340 km [832 mile] border with Russia. Does Blinken think Finland wants to go to war with the Russian Federation?
Boasting about how the U.S. has degraded the Russian military with its 15-month proxy war with the Kremlin is precisely why there’s no real peace effort unless Putin meets the U.S. and Kiev demands to remove all its military from Ukraine, including the Crimean Peninsula. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky accuses any country urging peace talks with Russian collusion, saying they’re on Putni’s side. Blinken thinks, as Secretary of State, it’s OK to needle Putin about the inferior status of the Russian military. “The Kremlin often claimed it had the second strongest military in the world—and many believed it,” Blinken said in a Helsinki speech. “Today, many see Russia’s military as the second strongest in Ukraine,” Blinken said, boasting about how U.S. arms has dramatically increase Kiev’s defensive strength. Finland officials couldn’t be happy with Blinken’s provocation.
Joining NATO was supposed to strengthen Findlan’s defensive capability, not create more antagonism with the Russian Federation. Joining NATO was a big change for Finland, who, all through the Cold War, pretended neutrality, when Helsinki always leaned toward the European Union [EU]. Calling Putin’s war with Ukraine a “strategic failure,” diminishing “Russia’s military, economic and diplomatic power, and its influence for years to come,” Blinken throws gasoline on the fire, already destroying Ukraine for the last 15 months. With thousands of civilian casualties, estimated at 8.9 thousand and at least 3.2 million forced out of Ukraine, Blinken should be taking peace more seriously. If he keeps the war going with the intent of degrading the Russian military, Ukraine’s infrastructure continues to suffer, not to mention civilian and military casualties including more lost sovereign territory.
Blinken confirmed for the Kremlin the aim of the U.S. proxy war, to degrade the Russian military. Blinken calls the Ukraine War as ‘strategic failure” for Russia but what about for the U.S. and Ukraine? Russia’s “special military operation” has decimated Ukraine’s dilapidated infrastructure, forcing the country into bankruptcy. If not for the billions in U.S. government largess, Ukraine could not pay its civil servants, nor pay any of its leaders, including Zelensky. So when Blinken talks about Russia’s “strategic failure,” what’s been beneficial to Ukraine and the U.S.? Putin knows that he can keep the Ukraine War going indefinitely if that the game is played by Washington and Kiev. Reports of the Pentagon depleted of various munitions and weapons systems to protect U.S. national security have also been noted. Blinken’s boasts don’t help Finland but certainly not Ukraine.
Biden said before and after the Ukraine War started that he would hit Putin with the most punishing economic sanctions imaginable, making him pay a heavy price for the war. But not long after Biden’s Russian oil embargo, several countries doing business with Russia did more business, more than making up for the loss of oil and natural sales to the EU. Blinken knows that however much Russia takes a beating in Ukraine, it’s even worse of Ukraine. So, when it comes to keeping the war going, it only hurts the Ukrainian people, no matter what the territorial dispute with the Kremlin. Instead of boasting about Ukraine’s military strength, Blinken should be finding ways to end the conflict and start the peace process. Keeping the war going with the intent of degrading the Russian military only states for the record that Biden’s proxy war supercedes Kiev’s ongoing battle with the Kremlin.
Blinken rejects numerous peace proposals that calls for a ceasefire and peace talks to end the Ukraine conflict. “It would legitimize Russia’s land grab,” Blinken said. “I would reward the aggressor and punish the victim,” referring to Ukraine’s loss of sovereign territory. Blinken knows that Russia occupied Ukraine in Donbas and Crimea before the Feb. 24, 2022 war. Putin offered Ukraine an out early on, saying he would end the conflict if Ukraine accepted the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk and recognized Russian sovereignty of Crimea. Pressing on with the war, Blinken and Zelensky think they’ll succeed in driving Russian out of Ukraine. Military experts, with all Ukraine’s new weapons, don’t expect much to change in 2023, meaning Ukraine faces more carnage and infrastructure damage.
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.
