Getting off on the wrong foot, 78-year-old President Joe Biden has already pushed 68-year-old ed Russian President to close ranks with the Kremlin, countering U.S. threats to sanction the Russian Federation. Putin’s been under pressure recently by the European Union [EU] and U.S. to let 44-year-old dissident Alexi Navalny out of prison, blaming Putin for Navalny’s claim he was poisoned by Russia’s FSB security service at the behest of Putin. Putin has put the EU and U.S. on notice that any attempt to sanction the Russian Federation could result in the Kremlin breaking off diplomatic relations with the EU and U.S. Biden and his 58-year-old Secretary of State Tony Blinkern have ripped Putin ever since taking office, claiming Putin has cracked down on free speech in Russia, persecuting journalists, and, in Navalny’s case, arresting, charging, convicting and sentencing him to two-years-eight months in prison.
Navalny’s been organizing street protests in Russia to oust Putin from office. When he was poisoned Aug. 24, 2020 in Tomsk, Siberia, Navalny’s doctors in Berlin claimed it was Soviet-era Novichok, used by Russia’s FSB to assassinate former dissidents like Sergein Skripal and his daughter Yulia March 4, 2018 in Salisbury, U.K. U.S. and EU officials want Putin sanctioned for violating the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention. U.S. and EU have no proof that Putin ordered Navalny’s poisoning, despite claims by Navalny. Whatever happened to Navalny, it’s an internal matter for the Russian Federation, not something the U.S. and EU should use to wreck U.S.-EU-Russian relations now close to collapse. Biden and Blinken have also threatened to sanction Saudi Arabia over the Oct. 2, 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi embassy in Istanbul.
Putin cited the U.S. containment doctrine dating back to the Cold War, something the U.S. uses to “derail our development, slow it down, create problems alongside our borders, provokes internal instability and undermine the values that unite Russian society.” When Putin asks the FSB [formerly the KGB] for help, you know that Biden has antagonized Putin and the Russian Federation. Putin said Navalny was cooperating with the CIA and other foreign intelligence agencies to undermine the Russian Federation. Putin accused the CIA of fomenting revolution in Ukraine Feb. 22, 2014 while he hosted the Sochi Winter Games. When the games ended March 1, 2014, Putin invaded Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, something that antagonized the EU and U.S. But Putin also knows that the U.S. and EU did nothing in 2014 when the Russian Federation moved into Crimea.
Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen have demanded that Putin release Navalny from prison, threatening economic and trade sanctions if he doesn’t release Navalny. Both the U.S. and EU know that Putin doesn’t tell the U.S. or EU what to do with its prisoners or dissidents, especially the ones that invaded the Capitol on Jan. 6. Can you imagine how the U.S. would respond if Putin demanded that all dissidents participating in the Capitol riot be freed from prison? Putin turned the U.S. and EU threats of sanctions over to the FSB, letting them now that Russia is under siege by the West. “Weakening Russia and putting it under outside control,” Putin said, was the aim of foreign governments currently planning to slap Moscow with new sanctions. Watching Biden play into the anti-Kremlin or anti-Beijing rhetoric shows he’s willing to destabilize world peace.
Whatever one says about 74-year-old former President Donald Trump, he did everything possible to get along with American enemies, knowing that maintaining some rapport is better than no rapport. Biden and Von Der Leyen/s approach to Putin and Chinese President Xi Jingping show that the leaders are willing to sacrifice world peace for internal politics. Breaking off relations with Putin certainly harms the EU, whose borders with Russia, especially in Poland and the Baltic States, are more insecure than ever. U.S. media accused Trump without any facts of colluding with the Kremlin, making certain that mending fences with Moscow after abysmal relations with the Obama administration was impossible. Biden has picked up where Obama left off, destroying a workable relationship with Russia Trump worked to establish good relations against all odds, during his four years in office.
Putin finds it inexplicable that the U.S. and EU condemn Russia’s treatment of Navalny, a known dissident that threatens with his organized snetwork to topple the Kremlin, when the U.S. government pursues with a vengeance dissidents that beached the U.S. Capitol Jan. 6. “It’s necessary to draw a line between natural political competition, competition between political parties, ideological platforms, various views on the country’s development, and the activities that have nothing to do with democracy and are aimed at undermining stability and security of our state, at serving foreign interests,” Putin said. Putin’s not kidding about closing ranks in response to U.S. and EU sanctions, cracking down on dissidents around the country. Before its too late, Biden and Von Der Leyen should think carefully how far they’re willing to push Putin, something he’s prepared to meet head on.
