Russia put 46-year-old Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his predecessor 58-year-old Petro Pososhenko on its Most Wanted List, firing back after Zelensky insisted that Putin be charged by The Hague’s International Criminal Court for war crimes in Ukraine, accusing the Russian president of abducting thousands of Ukrainian children. Ukraine’s 43-year-old Foreign Minister Dymtro Kuleba dismissed all the Kremlin’s charges against Zelensky, Poroshenko and several members of Poland and Estonia for removing WW II war memorials, something considred illegal in Russia. Russia battled the Nazis from 1939 to 1945, eventually losing some 28 million Russians, a staggering number eclipsing all war in human history. U.S. lost some 400,000, with Europe, including the U.K., losing some 20 million. Ukraine was aligned in WW II with the Nazi’s, prompting 71-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin to seek “de-Nazification” in Ukraine.
Ukraine cites the fact that Zelensky is Jewish as proof that Ukraine no longer has a problem with neo-Nazi groups, something denied by Kiev. Putin said in invading Ukraine Feb. 24, 2022 that he engaged in a military operation to “de-Nazify and de-militarize Ukraine, after 81-year-old President Joe Biden refused to discuss with Putin new security arrangements in Ukraine. Since Putin invaded Crimea Mary 1, 2014, U.S. policy under former President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden was to arm Ukraine. When Biden became President Jan. 20, 2021, he decided to go all in arming Ukraine over Kremlin objections. Putin responded by stationing some 200,000 Russia Trump on the Ukrainian border. Putin asked Biden for months before the Feb. 24, 2022 invasion to discuss new security arrangements for Ukraine but Biden refused to talk.
Zelensky continued to provoke Putin by ask NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg for fast-track NATO membership, something that never happened. Putin said Ukraine’s NATO membership would be a red flag for Russia, since, after the 1991 collapsed of the Soviet Union, former Secretary of State James Baker promised Russia that NATO would not encroach in Eastern Europe. Chinese President Xi Jinping, 70, said he agreed with Putin that the U.S. and NATO had gone too far in threatening Russian national security. Xi faces own problems with Biden threatening to send U.S. troops to Taiwan to defend against China. Xi has been most critical of Biden trying to create a NATO –like alliance in the Indo-Pacific region to challenge China’s supremacy in the South China Sea.
Biden has spent the last three-plus years provoking Russia and China to the point of war, now funding a costly proxy war in Ukraine against the Kremlin. Xi sees Biden doing the same thing with Taiwan, even though former President Jimmy Carter signed the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, ending the 1954 Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty, recognizing only one China, the one in Beijing. Yet Biden said in 2022 that he would send U.S. troops to defend Taiwan from the Chinese. At no time since President Richard Nixon reopended relations with China in 1973 has any president had such poor relations with Russia and China. If things continue, the U.S. could very easily get into a two-front war, one in Ukraine the other in Taiwan. War with Communist China would stretch the Pentagon especially in China, knowing what happened in North Korea in 1953.
NATO Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, an EU member from Estonia, was placed on Putin’s Most Wanted List for his role in removing Soviet era monuments from Tallinn, Estonia, a former part of the Soviet Union. Latvia and Poland have also torn down Soviet-era monuments, knowing the WW II sacrifices made by Polish patriots. Poland and the Baltic states have been most skeptical about Putin’s plans in former Soviet satellites should he vanquish Poland. Biden and Zelensky have warned the EU about Putn’s eventual plans to take over Europe. Putin told former Fox News journalist Tucker Carslon Feb. 8 he had no plans to take over a NATO country, only wants the U.S. to stop arming Ukraine. Yet French President Emmanuel Macron, 46, warned Putin today that there were conditions where France would commit troops to Ukraine, including whether Ukraine risked losing the war.
Biden has set a belligerent tone in Europe and Asia, leaving some to wonder if a second term would get the U.S. into WW III, a war in Ukraine and one in China. Putin was ridiculed for saying that he would go after NATO countries if the EU threatens Russian national security. Handing Ukraine $61 billion guarantees, at least for the time being, that war continues for the indefinite future. Biden and Zelensky have gaslighted other European Union [EU] and NATO members into thinking that if Ukraine loses the war, Putin start picking off other countries, especially former Soviet satellites. Putting Zelensky and other members of NATO and the EU on its Most Wanted list, Putin serves notice that two can play the game. Putin wants Biden to withhold more arms for Ukraine, insisting that Ukraine uses them to harm Russian national security. Putin warned the U.S. and NATO to cease-and-desist.
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.
