For the first time since the end of World War II in 1945, there may be a major war in Europe over Russian agression in Ukraine. Russia got away with the “annexation”of Crimea in 2014, and Russian-backed militias in the Donbas region of Ukraine waging a civil war in the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War.
Earlier this month Vladimir Putin sent Russian troops to assist the autocratic leader of Kazakhstan against protestors demanding his ouster. The Putin Doctrine: Russia defends autocrats from Belarus to Kazakhstan:
The deployment of a Russia-led military mission to Kazakhstan in early January proved to be a short-lived affair. Nevertheless, it served to underline Vladimir Putin’s growing international role as the world’s leading defender of authoritarianism.
The dramatic destabilization of Kazakhstan during the first week of 2022 caught the international community completely by surprise. The unrest appears to have involved genuine anti-regime protests along with political infighting between President Tokayev and elements close to his predecessor and mentor, Nursultan Nazarbayev.
The fate of the uprising was determined by the rapid decision to send an international peacekeeping mission to Kazakhstan. This force was dispatched within the framework of the Collective Security Treaty Organization and made up predominantly of Russian forces.
While this mission was relatively small and numbered only around 3,000 troops in total, it served a powerful symbolic purpose by signalling to Kazakhstan’s own security forces that Tokayev enjoyed the full backing of the Kremlin. This helped stabilize the regime and prevented defections to the side of the protesters.
Tokayev emerged from the crisis with his position intact but with his political future more dependent that ever on Russian goodwill. He joins an expanding list of authoritarian rulers whose regimes have been propped up in recent years by Kremlin intervention.
From Kazakhstan to Belarus and from Syria to Sudan, Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly intervened since 2015 to rescue authoritiarian rulers. This process can arguably be traced back to events in Ukraine in 2014 and Moscow’s unsuccessful efforts to save the country’s increasingly autocratic president, Viktor Yanukovych.
[F]or modern Russia, the ideology of the country’s authoritarian allies is no longer a major issue. Instead, the Kremlin seeks more specific gains such as geopolitical influence, diplomatic support, access for Russian businesses, and a willingness to host Russian military bases. Most of all, leaders on the receiving end of Moscow’s generosity must be prepared to suppress any signs of grassroots democracy.
Russia experts Col. Alexander Vindman and former Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul were interviewed on MSBNC’s Deadline White House by Nicole Wallace on Friday. Link to full interview.
Col. Alexander Vindman said he will stake his reputation on sounding the alarm that we are “just on the cusp” of a major war in Europe over Russian agression in Ukraine. He is all but certain that there is going to be a large war in Europe.
"I think we're basically just on the cusp of war. I think it's all but certain in my mind that there's going to be a large European war… My concern now is making sure that the U.S. is postured for that outcome… The ball is in Putin's court" – @AVindman w/ @NicolleDWallace pic.twitter.com/QXiGv4B9as
— Deadline White House (@DeadlineWH) January 22, 2022
Ambassador McFaul, who dealt directly with Putin, added his insights.
"I don't know what Putin wants, I don't know what his intentions are, and I'm frankly not convinced that anybody does… and he likes it that way… because you know what happens when you have uncertainty? We start negotiating with ourselves" – @McFaul w/ @NicolleDWallace pic.twitter.com/6mkvmTsDxk
— Deadline White House (@DeadlineWH) January 22, 2022
This is not going to end well. If ever nuclear powers confront one another on a battlefield directly, rather than through proxies, the side that fares poorly will not concede defeat. It will turn to the great equalizer to save face, even though this could result in mutually assured destruction (MAD doctrine) if nuclear weapons are ever used.
Putin is calculating that NATO and the Eastern European allies of Ukraine will back down and let him seize Ukraine to avoid another devastating war in Europe, and risk a nuclear conflict.
Putin dreams of reconstituting the old Soviet Union of his youth. The old Warsaw Pact nations of Eastern Europe that lived under the oppression of the Soviet Union do not want a return to those days. They may very well be willing to take this fight to Putin in Ukraine to defend their own sovereignty.
Will the Russian people rally around Putin out of nostalgia for the old Soviet Union? Or will this inspire greater public opposition than already exists to Putin inside Russia? Could it lead to Putin being deposed? Putin may find that he has more in common with Czar Nicholas II.
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UPDATE: “DHS warns of potential Russia cyberattacks amid tensions”, https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/24/politics/russia-cyberattack-warning-homeland-security/index.html
Russia would consider conducting a cyberattack on the US homeland if Moscow perceived that a US or NATO response to a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine “threatened [Russia’s] long-term national security,” according to a Department of Homeland Security intelligence bulletin obtained by CNN.
“Russia maintains a range of offensive cyber tools that it could employ against US networks—from low-level denials-of-service to destructive attacks targeting critical infrastructure,” says the January 23 memo, which DHS distributed to critical infrastructure operators and state and local governments.
DHS analysts assess that Moscow’s threshold for conducting disruptive or destructive cyberattacks on the US homeland “probably remains very high,” the memo says. “[W]e have not observed Moscow directly employ these types of cyber attacks against US critical infrastructure—notwithstanding cyber espionage and potential prepositioning operations in the past.”
US officials have been bracing for potential retaliatory cyberattacks from the Kremlin as Russia has threatened to invade Ukraine by amassing some 100,000 troops along the Ukraine border. The Treasury Department held a classified briefing that covered the issue for big US banks, while the Energy Department has briefed America’s largest electric utilities on Russian cyber capabilities, CNN previously reported.
[B]iden spoke days after a pair of cyberattacks targeted several Ukrainian government agencies that investigators believe were carried out by the same actor.
In some cases, the hackers replaced content on government websites with threatening messages claiming Ukrainians’ data had been stolen. In other cases, malicious software deleted data from roughly 20 computer servers and workstations at at least two Ukrainian government agencies, according to Victor Zhora, a Ukrainian official investigating the incident.
The impact of the hacks has so far been limited, but Ukraine’s recent history has officials on alert.
“One possibility … is that this attack is just a front for a much stronger attack that we may face in the future,” Serhiy Demedyuk, deputy secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, told CNN.
As Ukraine readies its military to defend against a potential Russian invasion, Ukrainian officials have held urgent cybersecurity meetings and drawn on US support to fortify their networks. Zhora told CNN that officials at the US Embassy in Kyiv were quick to offer help in recovering from the hacks.
It’s unclear, for now, who was responsible for the recent website defacements and the small amount of data-wiping on Ukrainian government networks. Some of the tactics used are similar to that of Russian hackers, Demedyuk said in an interview, but the evidence so far is inconclusive.
Demedyuk has also suggested that a hacking group linked with Belarus intelligence could be involved, but he told CNN that theory is unproven as of now. “The sheer amount of digital evidence involved in this attack has made it more difficult to pin down which group is responsible.”
Oh, yeah, point taken. Wileybud, Putin needs the oligarch’s, but he has ways of keeping them in line.
I’m clearly not a Russia expert, but I think I can say that Russia is a nasty little shithole of a country.
UPDATE: Russia expert Fiona Hill writes, “Putin Has the U.S. Right Where He Wants It”, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/24/opinion/russia-ukraine-putin-biden.html
(excerpt)
We warned [Presodent Bush] that Mr. Putin would view steps to bring Ukraine and Georgia closer to NATO as a provocative move that would likely provoke pre-emptive Russian military action. But ultimately, our warnings weren’t heeded.
Within four months, in August 2008, Russia invaded Georgia. Ukraine got Russia’s message loud and clear. It backpedaled on NATO membership for the next several years. But in 2014, Ukraine wanted to sign an association agreement with the European Union, thinking this might be a safer route to the West. Moscow struck again, accusing Ukraine of seeking a back door to NATO, annexing Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and starting an ongoing proxy war in Ukraine’s southeastern Donbas region. The West’s muted reactions to both the 2008 and 2014 invasions emboldened Mr. Putin.
This time, Mr. Putin’s aim is bigger than closing NATO’s “open door” to Ukraine and taking more territory — he wants to evict the United States from Europe. As he might put it: “Goodbye America. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”
As I have seen over two decades of observing Mr. Putin, and analyzing his moves, his actions are purposeful and his choice of this moment to throw down the gauntlet in Ukraine and Europe is very intentional. He has a personal obsession with history and anniversaries. December 2021 marked the 30th anniversary of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, when Russia lost its dominant position in Europe. Mr. Putin wants to give the United States a taste of the same bitter medicine Russia had to swallow in the 1990s. He believes that the United States is currently in the same predicament as Russia was after the Soviet collapse: grievously weakened at home and in retreat abroad. He also thinks NATO is nothing more than an extension of the United States. Russian officials and commentators routinely deny any agency or independent strategic thought to other NATO members. So, when it comes to the alliance, all Moscow’s moves are directed against Washington.
In the 1990s, the United States and NATO forced Russia to withdraw the remnants of the Soviet military from their bases in Eastern Europe, Germany and the Baltic States. Mr. Putin wants the United States to suffer in a similar way.
[If] Russia presses hard enough, Mr. Putin hopes he can strike a new security deal with NATO and Europe to avoid an open-ended conflict, and then it will be America’s turn to leave, taking its troops and missiles with it.
Ukraine is both Russia’s target and a source of leverage against the United States. Over the last several months Mr. Putin has bogged the Biden administration down in endless tactical games that put the United States on the defensive. Russia moves forces to Ukraine’s borders, launches war games and ramps up the visceral commentary. In recent official documents, it demanded ironclad guarantees that Ukraine (and other former republics of the U.S.S.R.) will never become members of NATO, that NATO pull back from positions taken after 1997, and also that America withdraw its own forces and weapons, including its nuclear missiles. Russian representatives assert that Moscow doesn’t “need peace at any cost” in Europe. Some Russian politicians even suggest the possibility of a pre-emptive strike against NATO targets to make sure that we know they are serious, and that we should meet Moscow’s demands.
[K]remlin officials have not just challenged the legitimacy of America’s position in Europe, they have raised questions about America’s bases in Japan and its role in the Asia-Pacific region. They have also intimated that they may ship hypersonic missiles to America’s back door in Cuba and Venezuela to revive what the Russians call the Caribbean Crisis of the 1960s.
Mr. Putin is a master of coercive inducement. He manufactures a crisis in such a way that he can win no matter what anyone else does. Threats and promises are essentially one and the same. Mr. Putin can invade Ukraine yet again, or he can leave things where they are and just consolidate the territory Russia effectively controls in Crimea and Donbas. He can stir up trouble in Japan and send hypersonic missiles to Cuba and Venezuela, or not, if things go his way in Europe.
Mr. Putin plays a longer, strategic game and knows how to prevail in the tactical scrum. He has the United States right where he wants it. His posturing and threats have set the agenda in European security debates, and have drawn our full attention. Unlike President Biden, Mr. Putin doesn’t have to worry about midterm elections or pushback from his own party or the opposition. Mr. Putin has no concerns about bad press or poor poll ratings. He isn’t part of a political party and he has crushed the Russian opposition. The Kremlin has largely silenced the local, independent press. Mr. Putin is up for re-election in 2024, but his only viable opponent, Aleksei Navalny, is locked in a penal colony outside of Moscow.
So Mr. Putin can act as he chooses, when he chooses. Barring ill health, the United States will have to contend with him for years to come. Right now, all signs indicate that Mr. Putin will lock the U.S. into an endless tactical game, take more chunks out of Ukraine and exploit all the frictions and fractures in NATO and the European Union. Getting out of the current crisis requires acting, not reacting. The United States needs to shape the diplomatic response and engage Russia on the West’s terms, not just Moscow’s.
[A] further Russian invasion of Ukraine and Ukraine’s dismemberment and neutralization cannot be an issue for U.S.-Russian negotiation nor a line item in European security. Ultimately, the United States needs to show Mr. Putin that he will face global resistance and Mr. Putin’s aggression will put Russia’s political and economic relationships at risk far beyond Europe.
[A]nother Russian assault would challenge the entire U.N. system and imperil the arrangements that have guaranteed member states’ sovereignty since World War II — akin to the Iraq invasion of Kuwait in 1990, but on an even bigger scale. The United States and its allies, and Ukraine itself, should take this issue to the United Nations and put it before the General Assembly as well as the Security Council. Even if Russia blocks a resolution, the future of Ukraine merits a global response.
Mr. Biden has promised that Russia “will pay a heavy price” if any Russian troops cross Ukraine’s borders. If Mr. Putin invades Ukraine with no punitive action from the West and the rest of the international community, beyond financial sanctions, then he will have set a precedent for future action by other countries. Mr. Putin has already factored additional U.S. financial sanctions into his calculations. But he assumes that some NATO allies will be reluctant to follow suit on these sanctions and other countries will look the other way. U.N. censure, widespread and vocal international opposition, and countries outside Europe taking action to pull back on their relations with Russia might give him pause. Forging a united front with its European allies and rallying broader support should be America’s longer game. Otherwise this saga could indeed mark the beginning of the end of America’s military presence in Europe.
UPDATE: The US State Department announced Sunday evening it would reduce staff levels at the US Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine, beginning with the departure of nonessential staff and family members.
NATO allies are putting forces on standby and sending additional ships and fighter jets to eastern Europe, the organization said Monday. “NATO allies put forces on standby as tensions rise over Ukraine crisis”, https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/24/europe/nato-deployment-eastern-europe-ukraine-intl/index.html”
“NATO will continue to take all necessary measures to protect and defend all Allies, including by reinforcing the eastern part of the Alliance,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in a statement Monday, welcoming the allies’ extra contributions to the military alliance.
“We will always respond to any deterioration of our security environment, including through strengthening our collective defence,” he added.
The New York Times adds, “Biden Weighs Deploying Thousands of Troops to Eastern Europe and Baltics”, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/23/us/politics/biden-troops-nato-ukraine.html
President Biden is considering deploying several thousand U.S. troops, as well as warships and aircraft, to NATO allies in the Baltics and Eastern Europe, an expansion of American military involvement amid mounting fears of a Russian incursion into Ukraine, according to administration officials.
The move would signal a major pivot for the Biden administration, which up until recently was taking a restrained stance on Ukraine, out of fear of provoking Russia into invading. But as President Vladimir V. Putin has ramped up his threatening actions toward Ukraine, and talks between American and Russian officials have failed to discourage him, the administration is now moving away from its do-not-provoke strategy.
In a meeting on Saturday at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland, senior Pentagon officials presented Mr. Biden with several options that would shift American military assets much closer to Mr. Putin’s doorstep, the administration officials said. The options include sending 1,000 to 5,000 troops to Eastern European countries, with the potential to increase that number tenfold if things deteriorate.
Mr. Biden is expected to make a decision as early as this week, they said. He is weighing the buildup as Russia has escalated its menacing posture against Ukraine, including massing more than 100,000 troops and weaponry on the border and stationing Russian forces in Belarus. On Saturday, Britain accused Moscow of developing plans to install a pro-Russian leader in Ukraine.
“Even as we’re engaged in diplomacy, we are very much focused on building up defense, building up deterrence,” Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said in an interview that aired Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “NATO itself will continue to be reinforced in a significant way if Russia commits renewed acts of aggression. All of that is on the table.”
So far, none of the military options being considered include deploying additional American troops to Ukraine itself, and Mr. Biden has made clear that he is loath to enter another conflict following America’s painful exit from Afghanistan last summer after 20 years.
[T]he deployment of thousands of additional American troops to NATO’s eastern flank, which includes Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Biden administration officials said, is exactly the scenario that Mr. Putin has wanted to avoid, as he has seen the western military alliance creep closer and closer to Russia’s own border.
[A]ccording to Poland’s defense ministry, there are currently about 4,000 U.S. troops and 1,000 other NATO troops stationed in Poland. There are also about 4,000 NATO troops in the Baltic States.
The United States has been regularly flying Air Force RC-135 Rivet Joint electronic-eavesdropping planes over Ukraine since late December. The planes allow American intelligence operatives to listen to Russian ground commanders’ communications. The Air Force is also flying E-8 JSTARS ground-surveillance planes to track the Russian troop buildup and the movements of the forces.
The Biden administration is especially interested in any indication that Russia may deploy tactical nuclear weapons to the border, a move that Russian officials have suggested could be an option.
More than 150 U.S. military advisers are in Ukraine, trainers who have for years worked out of the training ground near Lviv, in the country’s west, far from the front lines. The current group includes Special Operations forces, mostly Army Green Berets, as well as National Guard trainers from Florida’s 53rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team.
Military advisers from about a dozen allied countries are also in Ukraine, U.S. officials said. Several NATO countries, including Britain, Canada, Lithuania and Poland, have regularly sent training forces to the country.
In the event of a full-scale Russian invasion, the United States intends to move its military trainers out of the country quickly. But it is possible that some Americans could stay to advise Ukrainian officials in Kyiv, the capital, or provide frontline support, a U.S. official said.
I believe that culturally, the Ukrainian West, formerly ruled over by Poland and the Ukrainian Eastern, are more appropriate as 2 separate countries, like the former Czechoslovakia. Maybe KYIV can be a neutral capital of both.
Wouldn’t splitting the country be the Ukrainian people’s decision to make, and not Putin’s?
Former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul is against Russia invading Ukraine, of course.
He’s the American citizen that T4ump was considering turning over to Putin to torture.
I bet just deporting all the Russian oligarch’s children and mistresses out of New York, Miami, and London, and actioning off their penthouses and mansions and Lambo’s and yachts would cause the oligarch’s to put pressure on Putin to back off.
All those spoiled entitled children of criminals whining to their daddy’s how they miss the nightlife in the big Western cities and all those mistresses telling their Russian sugar daddies it’s too cold in Russia to get busy would have them turning on Putin in a hot second.
I understand that would depress real estate values in those cities, at least on the high end properties, but I can’t understand why we allow Russia mobsters aka Putin’s pals to launder their money in our country.
Actually I do, it’s in the billions, so, America. A quick search of Russian oligarch and laundering money in the US is very enlightening.
Complicated stuff I know, I’m hoping Biden and our allies can apply enough soft power to convince Putin to stand down.
“I bet just deporting all the Russian oligarch’s children and mistresses out of New York, Miami, and London, and actioning off their penthouses and mansions and Lambo’s and yachts would cause the oligarch’s to put pressure on Putin to back off.
All those spoiled entitled children of criminals whining to their daddy’s how they miss the nightlife in the big Western cities and all those mistresses telling their Russian sugar daddies it’s too cold in Russia to get busy would have them turning on Putin in a hot second.”
I’m not too sure about that Sharpie as I seem to recall that Putin had one of the oligarchs (don’t remember which one, head of Gazprom?) put on trial for (corruption?), putting the defendant in a glass booth a la Eichmann, in the center of the courtroom so all eyes would be on him. Which scared the crap out of the rest of the Russian oligarchs who have been servile, a la the Vulgar Talking Yam, to Putin, ever since.
When Putin kicks off the meet his maker I wonder if it will be a Death of Stalin rerun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9eAshaPvYw
So Tucker Carlson viewers are calling Democrat members of congress telling them to support Putin’s invading Ukraine.
Russia, a kleptocracy led by a murderous thug, goes from being called the Evil Empire by Republicans and Fox News just a few years ago to a Republican ally.
And after a few months of teasing, the MSM is now clearly all in with a shooting war between the US and Putin in Ukraine.
This is going to be very, very bad.
If we actually do create our own reality and I created this one I apologize to all of you creations for putting you through this.
I am not approving the usual idiot blog trolls here in favor of this well stated editorial opinion from the Washington Post, “Biden’s misstep on Ukraine was telling the truth”, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/01/20/bidens-misstep-ukraine-was-telling-truth/
In life, some truths are better left unsaid. That goes double for high-stakes diplomacy, in which a well-chosen word — or a poorly chosen one — can make the difference between peace and war. And so there was understandable consternation, in Washington and in European capitals, after President Biden’s Wednesday news conference, in which he did some thinking out loud about how much, if at all, the United States and its allies would punish a “minor incursion” by Russia into Ukraine. Worse, he portrayed this as a situation in which the allies would “fight about what to do and not do.” Mr. Biden tried to clarify his statement on Thursday, saying that “Russia will pay a heavy price” for “any” cross-border troop movement, but the damage was done.
[Speaking the God’s honest truth about the prospects of war. What a refreshing turn from the Bush-Cheney regime and Putin’s Puppet in the White House.]
And yet, unwise as it was, Mr. Biden’s original remark was reality-based: Even as Russian President Vladimir Putin masses troops on Ukraine’s borders and threatens to invade, European governments remain divided over how to respond if he does. Crucially, there is no consensus on how much aggression by Russia would, or should, trigger the massive sanctions the West has threatened — as Mr. Biden essentially admitted. The allies are not even on the same page as to deterrence itself.
Washington and Ukraine’s neighbors in Eastern Europe are in sync. By contrast, Germany, deeply conflicted because of its links to Russia through a major natural gas pipeline, has balked at arms supply. President Emmanuel Macron of France muddied diplomatic waters further by telling the European Parliament on Wednesday that Europeans should “coordinate“ with the Biden administration on policy toward Russia, but also “conduct their own dialogue.”
The upshot is that Mr. Putin has managed to evoke division among the NATO members without firing a shot. This can only tempt him to see how much more he could sow by an actual attack. In a speech Thursday, Antony Blinken, Mr. Biden’s secretary of state, refocused attention on the real cause of this crisis — Russia’s blatant violation of international norms. One by one, Mr. Blinken ticked off agreements dating back to 1975 that Russia had signed, and with which its current threats toward Ukraine are completely inconsistent. He warned of the destabilization that could radiate globally if Mr. Putin continues to redraw international borders by force. Looking ahead to his meeting with Russia’s foreign minister on Friday, Mr. Blinken said diplomacy still has a chance — but there was warranted pessimism in his voice.
As important as what Mr. Blinken said was where he said it: Berlin, capital of Europe’s most populous, richest and most influential democracy, and the one that has attempted simultaneously to get its energy from Russia and its security from the United States and NATO. Events are rapidly making Germany’s position less and less tenable. However belatedly — and however clumsily — the Biden administration has tried to rally the West. In the end, though, Germany and other European countries cannot outsource all the political will to the United States. They must supply some themselves.
I cannot believe that your analysis of the current possible pending war involving Russia over the Ukraine failed to mention how President Biden drew Europe and America closer to such a war by suggesting that a Russian minor incursion into the Ukraine would be looked at differently than a full-scale invasion. Had Trump said that you would be going ballistic. But since he is your guy, he gets a pass.
By the way, how presidential was it for Biden to say he would not answer press questions because they might ask him about Russia. Biden comming off Afghanistan and stumbling into the Ukraine has gone beyond a national embarrassment to a threat to world peace. Even his media friends are beginning to question his competency. How long will you continue to cover for him?