President Joe Biden’s, 79, liberal press gives him high marks for managing the Ukraine situation, gaining high praised from his 59-year-old Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his 45-year-old National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. While Biden’s team pats each other on the back, 72-uear-old Special Ukraine envoy Wendy Sherman met with 61-year-old Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Rybakov in Geneva, ending in failure. U.S. press dotes on Biden’s failures, hoping that he can win plaudits when his abysmal approval ratings say otherwise. Approval ratings don’t lie with Biden’s aggregate ratings dropping to 41.6%, not due primarily to the Omicron variant but to his pathetic management of Russia and China, where U.S. national security has been severely compromised. How the liberal press sees Biden’s response to Russia and China as anything but a failure is anyone’s guess.
Biden, Blinken and Sullivan trashed U.S. relations with Beijing, accusing the Chinese Communist Party [CCP] of committing genocide against Muslim Uyghurs in Western China. But by far Biden’s biggest failure is sacrificing U.S.-Russian relations to protect Ukraine against what U.S. officials and the Western press say is an imminent land grab. Putin and Rybakov have made clear that they have no intent of invading Ukraine, unlike March 1, 2014, when Putin sent the Russian military to annex Crimea. Western officials and the press don’t ever tell the truth about the Feb. 22, 20214 CIA-backed coup in Kiev that toppled the duly elected, Kremlin-backed government of Viktor Yanukovyh. Yet despite differences between then and now, U.S. and European Union officials refuse to acknowledge the differences. Putin isn’t trying to reinstate the old Soviet Union, he’s trying to keep NATO out of Ukraine.
No one can figure out how or why Biden thinks Ukraine has national security significance to the United States. Keeping U.S.-Russian relations on an even footing is far more important to global security than defending Ukraine. Putin and Rybakov have said they have no intent to invading the Donbass region of Eastern Ukraine, yet the U.S. and foreign press insist Russia is ready to invade. Putin has asked the U.S. and NATO to honor the Kremlin’s red lines that that Ukraine be kept out of NATO membership. Ukraine doesn’t need NATO membership to work on better diplomatic relations with the Kremlin. Putin simply asked the U.S. and NATO to keep military assets out of Ukraine. If Biden, Blinken, Sullivan and Sherman had any common sense, they’d honor Putin’s red lines, keeping NATO out of Ukraine. Giving Putin concessions on Ukraine would defuse the crisis along the Ukraine border.
Biden’s foreign policy with Putin has been one of confrontation, all for no reason because U.S.-Russian relations is far more important than Ukraine’s. When Sherman met with Rybakov Jan. 10, she had no business threatening Putin with crippling economic sanctions because Rybakov has said Russia has no intent of annexing more Ukraine territory. Yet Biden’s brain trust, led by Blinken, does nothing other than antagonize Russia with more idle threats. No one in the Biden administration can say why the White House insists that that a Ukraine invasion is imminent. Instead of creating such antagonism with Putin, Sherman should have given Russia its concessions on Ukraine, offering Putin legal guarantees that it won’t give Ukraine membership or military equipment. Biden, Blinken and Sullivan’s inflexibility has so badly damaged U.S. national security, the U.S. has no linkage with Russia and China to manage emerging threats, including NKorea, around the globe.
If there’s any military altercation in Ukraine, it’s going to tank world markets, driving the economy into recession. Why Biden’s White House feels inclined to pick its battles with the Kremlin is anyone’s guess. Instead of antagonizing Putin, Biden, Blinken and Sullivan should find any way possible to improve U.S.-Russian relations. Putin isn’t looking to reestablish the old Soviet Union, he’s looking to deal with emerging threats coming from the U.S., EU and NATO. Putin has said that Russia has no where to go in Ukraine, seeking to keep NATO out of Russia’s pro-Western neighbor. U.S. officials never got over the March 1, 2014 invasion of Crimea, because they won’t admit that the Feb. 22, 2014 CIA-backed coup placed Russia’s Sevastopol naval base in harm’s way, requiring adequate protection. Biden, Blinken, Sullivan and Sherman all blame Putin for the escalation in Ukraine.
No one in the EU or NATO wants to join Biden’s madness when it comes to threatening the Kremlin. EU officials, especially Germany, has completed the $12 billion Nord Stream 2 pipeline to bypass Ukraine and supply Russian natural gas to Germany for the foreseeable future. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tx.) urged the Senate to pass his bill to stop Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Germany wants to get its natural gas from Russia regardless of the EU’s growing dependence on Russian natural gas. Instead of provoking Putin, the U.S. should find a way to get along with the Russian Federation, including allowing the Nord Stream 2 to move forward. Putin has no desire to confront the U.S. over Ukraine, he wants only to keep NATO out of Ukraine’s territory. Western officials and press continues to push propaganda that Putin wants to annex more Ukraine territory, when the Kremlin says no.
