Since last November, pundits have been commenting on the buildup of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border as if Russia were poised to mount the kind of blitzkrieg invasion of Ukraine that Germany mounted to invade Poland in 1939.
To be fair, though, no less an authority than The Washington Post gave credence to their comments with headlines like the following from its edition on December 4:
- Russia planning massive military offensive against Ukraine involving 175,000 troops, U.S. intelligence warns
But I knew better. Not least because, think whatever you will of President Joe Biden, I knew from his days as former President Barack Obama’s VP that he’s a badass when it comes to standing up to bullies like Putin.
That’s why I was so confident my public comments were consistent with Biden’s covert actions. Here, for example, is how I commented on frenzied reports on this troop buildup in The Guardian on November 13:
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Instead of fretting about Russia’s intentions, NATO should be making a show of funneling military arms into Ukraine. That will check(mate) Putin. Because every Russian soldier on the frontlines will begin trembling at the thought of crossing, knowing it would amount to little more than a suicide mission.
In which case, of course, the only winners will be the arms merchants behind the military industrial complex Eisenhower famously warned about. But hey, the whole Cold War was premised on this kind of MAD standoff.
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More to the point, even as others kept hyperventilating about rising tensions, I pooh-poohed the prospect of a military invasion at Fox News on December 4 as follows:
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It’s déjà vu all over again. Putin used the Beijing 2008 Olympics as cover to invade Georgia; he’s betraying intent to use the Beijing 2022 Olympics as cover to invade Ukraine. Except he has overplayed his hand this time. Not to mention that Ukraine is of far more strategic interest to NATO.
And so Putin faces a dilemma: beg President Biden for a face-saving way to retreat from the border; or, given how NATO has armed Ukraine, invade and suffer the worst casualties by an invading army since the Germans lost over 400,000 forces trying to invade Russia during WWII.
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He’s begging. Never mind that, this being Putin, he has to pretend he’s demanding…
Russia has put forward a highly contentious list of security guarantees it says it wants the west to agree to in order to lower tensions in Europe and defuse the crisis over Ukraine, including many elements that have already been ruled out.
The demands include a ban on Ukraine entering NATO and a limit to the deployment of troops and weapons to NATO’s eastern flank, in effect returning NATO forces to where they were stationed in 1997, before an eastward expansion.
(The Guardian, December 17, 2021)
I mean, I’ve heard of asking for the moon and settling for the stars. But this is tantamount to asking for the moon knowing you’ll have to settle for hot air… In fact, this seems proof that Putin never had any intention of invading Ukraine.
Ukrainian troops are now armed to inflict casualties on Russian troops that would make those they suffered in their humiliating defeat in Afghanistan look like a drive-by shooting. And even a hungry Russian bear is sensible enough to know trying to eat a porcupine is not a smart thing to do.
But, as no less a statesman than Winston Churchill once famously quipped, better to jaw, jaw than to war, war. Even so, let the record clearly reflect, especially for treasonous Putin lovers in the Republican Party and at Fox News, that Biden called Putin’s bluff!
Sure enough, hot air and retreat are now the order of the day.
Russia will start talks with the U.S. on its demands for guarantees of an end to NATO’s eastward expansion before a proposed Jan. 12 meeting between the military alliance and Moscow, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said. … President Vladimir Putin last week in his annual press conference praised what he described as a ‘positive’ U.S. response to the Russian proposals.
Russia’s Defense Ministry announced Dec. 25 that more than 10,000 troops would return to their permanent bases in the Southern Military District following more than a month of training, including in areas near Ukraine.
(Bloomberg, December 27, 2021)
Of course, Putin praising Biden’s response to his demands for guarantees is rather like clueless Harry in Dumb and Dumber responding to Mary’s rejection by saying, haplessly, “So you’re telling me there’s a chance!”
This is why I think Putin is doing anything he can now to deflect from this retreat. And I have to give him credit for coming up with the perfect foil (aka a shiny object for the media to chase) to do the trick:
Russia’s Supreme Court ordered the country’s oldest human rights group to disband on Tuesday for breaking a law requiring it to act as “a foreign agent”, capping a year of crackdowns on Kremlin critics unseen since the Soviet era.
The closure of Memorial International bookmarks a year in which Alexei Navalny, the Kremlin’s top critic, was jailed, his movement banned and many of his allies forced to flee. Moscow says it is simply enforcing laws to thwart extremism and shield the country from what it says is malign foreign influence.
(Reuters, December 28, 2021)
What else can I say. Evidently Putin has decided Russia has no greater need for human rights groups than Afghanistan has for an election commission, which the Taliban banned a few days ago. Yes, both countries seem hell-bent on marching back to the future…
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Pundits on Ukraine… Navalny…
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