Testing its nuclear-ready Iskander missiles, Russia military fired missiles at the Baltic coast in Kalinkingrad, the Western-most territory of the Russian Federation. President Vladimir Putin, 69, has been warning the West about not pushing things too far in Ukraine, where a determined U.S. effort has supplied Ukraine with the most advanced U.S. weapon systems to beat back the Feb. 24 Russian invasion. President Joe Biden,79, has insisted from Day One the Russian invasion was “unprovoked and unjustified,” despite the fact that the 85-year-old neutral prince of peace Pope Francis said May 3 that NATO might have provoked the Ukraine War. White House officials warned months before the Feb. 24 invasion that that Russia would invade “imminently,” despite months going by with no invasion. White House officials insist they had nothing to do with Russia’s invasion.
Well, it you take Putin at face value, he warned Biden for months about continuing to arm the Kiev regime. Putin told Biden Dec. 24, 2021 that if he didn’t meet to renegotiate security arrangement in Ukraine and Eastern Europe, he would be forced to take “military-technical measures.” So the Ukraine invasion was no surprise at all, a direct consequence of failed diplomacy. Putin has been watching Ukraine receive massive shipment of U.S. and NATO arms, essentially becoming a puppet U.S. state on the Russian border. That arrangement would never work for Russia, despite the fact the U.S. continues to funnel massive arms shipments to Ukraine. When Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin turned heads in Ramstein, Germany April 26 saying the U.S. military’s aim in Ukraine was to weaken the Russian military, it sent shockwaves through world capitals, realizing the U.S. goals had changed.
No one in the European Union [EU] signs on or endorses the new U.S. mission in Ukraine. All EU countries want a peaceful resolution to the Ukraine War at the earliest possible time, knowing the risks of continued conflict. Today’s Iskander ICBM test in Kaliiningrad fires a warning shot to the U.S. and NATO that if the Ukraine War gets out of hand, Russia reserves the right to use nukes as it sees fit. U.S. and NATO officials react harshly to the Kremlin’s suggestion that nuclear weapons are on the table. But the Biden White House hasn’t come to grips with the fact that the Kremlin views the U.S. involvement in Ukraine as a proxy war against the Russian Federation. As long as the U.S. floods Ukraine with arms, the Kremlin will push back in Ukraine with a ferocity not seen in recent times. Putin said that he thought it was inevitable the U.S. and Russia would eventually go war.
Russia announced today a temporary ceasefire at the Mariupol Azovstal steel plant to allow a humanitarian corridor to evacuate primarily civilians. Kiev has told military personnel holed up at Azovstal to fight to the death, using Ukrainian soldiers holed up as PR victory for Ukraine. But with the town burn to the ground, there’s nothing left other than symbolish all through the Donbas area where Russia now has the land necessary to connect to the Crimean Peninsula. Kiev said Russian soldiers are trying to massacre what’s left of Ukrainian troop in Avovstal. “You were witnesses, the president gave the order to refrain from an assault. No other orders and the [humanitarian] corridors are working today,” said Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov. Kiev said Russian soldiers were storming the Azovstal steel plant to root out remaining Ukrainian troops.
Whether admitted to or not, the Ukraine War is being run out of the White House, forcing the Kremlin to take a more brutal approach toward the war. No longer does Putin fight only Ukraine but now engages in the U.S. battling Ukrainian proxies seeking, as Austin said April 26 in Ramstein, to weaken the Russian military. So much of the Ukraine War has been propaganda, especially on the U.S. and Ukraine side, promoting the belief that Russia has sustained massive casualties and loss of equipment. But if anyone looks at the video coming from Ukraine, it’s obvious that Ukraine has been reduced rubble. Yet if you listen to Washington and Kiev, Russia has been taking a beating, telling the Democrat-friendly U.S. press that the Russian Federation is nearing collapse. Biden and Ukraine’s 44-year-old Russian President Volodymyr Zelensky should be careful not to believe their own propaganda.
Before it’s too late, it’s time for French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to put Bidien on notice that the EU or NATO does not support a U.S. proxy war using Ukraine to fight the Russian Federation. EU officials need to tell Biden to confine the war to helping Ukraine preserve its sovereignty and territorial integrity but the mission can’t go beyond that. Nazi Germany battled the Soviet Union for six years killing over 27 million Russians before Adolf Hitler and his partners Eva Braun committed suicide in his Berlin bunker. No European wants to see WW III acted out on the European Continent. Biden and Zelensky may despise Putin but they have no right to drag the rest of Europe or the world into a border dispute between Ukraine and the Russian Federation. Zelensky needs to find a way to get along with his neighbor, no wage proxy war against the Kremlin.
