Eliot A. Cohen writes: A terrible thing may be impending in Ukraine. Undoubtedly, subversion, sabotage, and murder await, although such miseries have been going on for some time without the West paying much attention. But a Russian onslaught, to include air and missile strikes followed by an invasion, would be a lot worse. Thousands of people may die, and the foundations of European security would be rocked as they have not been since the early days of the Cold War….
Dmitry Suslov, Deputy Director, Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, interviewed on Channel 4 News.
CNBC reports: President Joe Biden cast a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine in stark historical terms Tuesday, saying, “it would be the largest invasion since World War II.” “It would change the world,” said Biden, if the tens of thousands of Russian troops who have been amassing on the Russian-Ukrainian border were to launch an incursion into Ukrainian territory. Biden’s remarks reflect a growing consensus among experts that any conflict in Ukraine is unlikely to be confined to a small…
Helmut Walser Smith writes: On 8 May 1985, West Germany’s president Richard von Weizsäcker delivered something akin to the Gettysburg Address – not for a nation in the midst of war, as was the case for the United States’ president Abraham Lincoln in 1863, but for a country working through the memory and the meaning of a lost war 40 years after its end. There were, of course, vast differences in the two speeches. Given on a grey day on…
Fiona Hill writes: We knew this was coming. “George, you have to understand that Ukraine is not even a country. Part of its territory is in Eastern Europe and the greater part was given to us.” These were the ominous words of President Vladimir Putin of Russia to President George W. Bush in Bucharest, Romania, at a NATO summit in April 2008. Mr. Putin was furious: NATO had just announced that Ukraine and Georgia would eventually join the alliance. This…
BuzzFeed News reports: Ukrainians expressed confusion and anger Monday over Washington’s decision to authorize the voluntary departure of government employees from Kyiv and order the mandatory withdrawal of family members of US embassy personnel. The decision announced by the Department of State cited the “threat of Russian military action.” It comes as a staggering number of Russian soldiers with heavy weaponry continue to arrive at areas along the Ukraine border, moves that President Joe Biden has warned may be preparation…
The Observer reports: The Foreign Office has said that it had exposed evidence of a plot to install a pro-Moscow government in Ukraine, and Boris Johnson promised to “ramp up pressure on Russia”, as his own domestic political troubles deepened. Saturday’s rare reference to intelligence-gathering went into almost no detail about a conspiracy that, if accurate, could mean a serious escalation in the threat to Ukraine. Politicians there were sceptical that the government could be replaced without a full-blown invasion…
The Wall Street Journal reports: Germany’s dependence on Russian gas has left Europe short of options to sanction Moscow if it invades Ukraine—and itself vulnerable should Russia stop gas exports to the West. A two-decade-old decision to phase out nuclear power and more recent moves to cut reliance on coal in an effort to bring down CO2 emissions mean Germany is now more reliant on Russian gas than most of its neighbors, not just for heating but also for power…
Eugene Chausovsky writes: In its decision-making process on whether to intervene militarily in the former Soviet sphere, Russia’s calculus uses a strategic framework that rests primarily on five variables: 1) a trigger; 2) local support; 3) anticipated military reaction; 4) technical feasibility; and 5) relatively low anticipated political and economic costs, especially when it comes to nonmilitary responses to invasion such as sanctions or diplomatic restrictions. If any one of these conditions is insufficient or nonexistent, then Russia is unlikely…
The Guardian reports: The US embassy in Ukraine has requested the evacuation of all non-essential staff amid increasing fears of an imminent Russian invasion and the arrival overnight of arms deliveries promised by President Joe Biden, according to a CNN report. US evacuations are likely to start “as early as next week”, the US cable news network said, citing a source close to the Ukrainian government. It marks the embassy’s shift in focus towards “helping Ukraine bolster its defences in…
The Wall Street Journal reports: Russia wants to destabilize Ukraine using a variety of attacks, Ukrainian officials said, pushing back against a suggestion from President Biden that the U.S. and its allies would respond differently to a small-scale incursion than a full-on invasion. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Thursday responded to Mr. Biden’s comment suggesting that Western nations weren’t in tandem on how to respond to Russian President Vladimir Putin in the…
The New York Times reports: Near the height of the war against the Islamic State in Syria, a sudden riot of explosions rocked the country’s largest dam, a towering, 18-story structure on the Euphrates River that held back a 25-mile-long reservoir above a valley where hundreds of thousands of people lived. The Tabqa Dam was a strategic linchpin and the Islamic State controlled it. The explosions on March 26, 2017, knocked dam workers to the ground and everything went dark….
Politico reports: At least three European allies are waiting for the U.S. State Department to approve their requests to send U.S.-made weapons to Ukraine, as fears grow of a multi-front invasion by Russian forces and the Biden administration prepares to ship a new batch of weapons to Kyiv. Baltic NATO allies Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia are looking to transfer American-made lethal weapons such as anti-armor and ground-to-air missiles to Ukraine, according to officials from those countries and people familiar with…
NBC News reports: The White House believes Russia could launch an invasion of Ukraine at any moment, press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday, warning that an “extremely dangerous situation” is building along the Ukrainian border. “We believe we’re now at a stage where Russia could at any point launch an attack on Ukraine. I would say that’s more stark than we have been,” Psaki said during her daily press briefing. The assessment comes as Secretary of State Antony Blinken travels…
Alyona Getmanchuk writes: It’s a shame that Ukraine was largely absent from talks last week among American, European and Russian diplomats. Especially since it is our future that is at stake — and Kyiv’s asks might come as a surprise. Our country is not brimming with hope about a Western savior or a NATO rescue in the face of a Russian invasion. What we want from our Western partners that share our desire for us to be a true democracy…
CNN reports: The US has information that indicates Russia has prepositioned a group of operatives to conduct a false-flag operation in eastern Ukraine, a US official told CNN on Friday, in an attempt to create a pretext for an invasion. The official said the US has evidence that the operatives are trained in urban warfare and in using explosives to carry out acts of sabotage against Russia’s own proxy forces. Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said the Defense Department has…