29 March 22
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The President doubled down on his statement that the Russian leader should no longer rule in Moscow.
Two decades later, Ronald Reagan warned that the Soviets had built an offensive military force to extend their power in ways that “directly challenge our vital interests and those of our allies.” He announced plans to develop new anti-missile technology—subsequently dubbed “Star Wars”—to render Russia’s nuclear weapons “impotent and obsolete.” It could take decades, Reagan predicted, in 1983. The initiative was abandoned ten years later, because of technology failures and the Cold War’s end.
Over the weekend, Joe Biden set off a diplomatic tsunami of his own when he ad-libbed the final line of a speech in Warsaw that urged a “new battle for freedom” by the West to prevent Vladimir Putin from strangling democracies—not only in Ukraine—and upending the international order that has defined trade, diplomacy, arms control, and even nationhood since the Second World War. In impromptu remarks, Biden tacked on the line “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.” The gaffe capped—and diverted focus from—an otherwise productive trip to Europe to rally military, economic, and diplomatic action for the besieged government of President Volodymyr Zelensky and against the ruthless invasion unleashed by Putin.
The Biden team initially insisted that the President meant only that the Russian leader should not be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors. But the President couldn’t shake perceptions that the comment was in his heart, if not on his teleprompter. And then, in a press conference on Monday, he went further. “I’m not walking anything back,” Biden told reporters. “I make no apologies for it.” He again insisted that Putin shouldn’t remain in power—“just like, you know, bad people shouldn’t continue to do bad things.” His words in Warsaw reflected moral outrage over Putin’s “totally unacceptable” brutality, he said, then he insisted that he was not signalling a new U.S. policy of regime change in Russia.
Biden did speculate to reporters, however, about Putin’s fate as the costs of war and diplomatic isolation deepen inside Russia. “If he continues on this course that he’s on, he is going to become a pariah worldwide, and who knows what he becomes at home in terms of support?” he said. Biden dismissed questions about whether his provocative comment might escalate what is a showdown between the West and Russia over more than Ukraine. Given Putin’s recent behavior, “he is going to do what he thinks he should do, period,” Biden said. “He’s not affected by anybody else, including, unfortunately, apparently his own advisers.”
Allies who were in diplomatic synch days earlier have been stunned. The French President, Emmanuel Macron, who has tried to negotiate with Putin, disavowed Biden’s remark. The West’s goals are to get a ceasefire and then Russia’s total withdrawal from Ukraine “by diplomatic means,” Macron said. “If we want to do that, we can’t escalate in either words or actions.” The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, snapped back that leaders should control their tempers. “Personal insults narrow the window of opportunity” for relations, he said. “The President of Russia is elected by Russians.”
Wars are inevitably traumatic and unpredictable, with rippling impacts well beyond the fighting and myriad unintended consequences. A month into the Ukraine war, the sweeping scope of the conflict is increasingly visible. “This battle will not be won in days or months either. We need to steel ourselves for the long fight ahead,” Biden warned, standing before the Royal Castle in Warsaw. “The test of this moment is the test of all time.”
Five trends are now shaping what happens next in Ukraine—and the consequences beyond the country’s borders. First, Russia is not winning, but it still has the military initiative. Ukraine’s army has fought beyond all expectations. NATO officials estimate that up to fifteen thousand Russians have been killed in the first four weeks of the conflict, about the same number that the Soviet Union lost in a decade-long war in Afghanistan. Ukraine’s territorial gains, however, have been modest compared with Russian advances in the east and south that have targeted civilian hospitals, homes, shopping centers, and open streets. On Monday, the chief of Ukraine’s defense intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, warned that Russia may try to divide Ukraine into two, like North and South Korea. After being ravaged by shelling, Mariupol appeared to be on the verge of falling to Russian control on Monday. And, despite Moscow’s recent claim that it wants only to secure the eastern Donbas region, where the majority of residents are Russian speakers, Putin’s military fired missiles deep into western Ukraine, close to the border with Poland—a member of NATO—over the weekend. The potential for death and destruction—and wider escalation—deepens every day. In a new NBC poll released on Sunday, fifty-seven per cent of Americans surveyed said that the U.S. was either already at war with Russia or would be in the next year.
Second, Kyiv will also require sustained supplies of arms, economic support, and humanitarian aid to survive the Russian onslaught. Zelensky said that his forces need—daily—five hundred Stinger missiles to hold off Russia’s air superiority and five hundred Javelin missiles to push back Russian tanks. As Biden wrapped up his three-day European trip, Zelensky pressed the thirty members of NATO for one per cent of the alliance’s planes and tanks. “This is what our partners have that is covered with dust at their storage facilities,” he said. In an interview with The Economist, he charged that some Western nations had balked at providing more aid “because they are afraid of Russia.” In some ways, that may be true, given Moscow’s nuclear arsenal. Over time, the West’s willingness to support or resupply the Ukrainian military could be a decisive factor in the conflict.
Third, Washington’s relations with Moscow may be irreparable as long as Putin is in power—a dynamic that dampens the prospects of a negotiated ceasefire over Ukraine, the lifting of sanctions on Russia, or a return to normal relations between the U.S. and Russia. In the past month, Biden has called the Russian leader a “war criminal,” a “murderous dictator,” a “thug,” and, after an emotional meeting with Ukrainian refugees on Saturday, a “butcher.” Ties between the world’s two largest nuclear powers were already at a historic low, with the Russians last week summoning the U.S. Ambassador, John Sullivan, to warn of an open “rupture.” Russia’s top military brass has repeatedly refused to take calls from either the U.S. Defense Secretary, Lloyd Austin, or the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, the Washington Post reported.
Fourth, the global economic consequences of a war in Eastern Europe have started to trickle in. Larry Fink, the C.E.O. of BlackRock, which manages the world’s largest asset portfolio, estimated at ten trillion dollars, predicted the unravelling of the economic ties that increasingly connected the world after the Cold War. “The Russian invasion of Ukraine has put an end to the globalization we have experienced over the last three decades,” Fink wrote, in a letter to shareholders, last week. It has “exacerbated the polarization and extremist behavior we are seeing across society today.” The war is also prompting both governments and the private sector worldwide to “re-evaluate their dependencies and re-analyze their manufacturing and assembly footprints,” Fink wrote. Some four hundred major multinationals have suspended operations in or pulled out of Russia since its invasion, a stunning reversal of burgeoning economic ties.
Economists are also worried about global food shortages and disruptions to the supply of other vital commodities. Thirty per cent of the world’s wheat supply comes from Russia or Ukraine. More than two dozen African countries rely on Ukraine and Russia for food staples, leading experts to worry about new waves of starvation. As the U.S. tries to tighten the economic squeeze on Putin, other important players, including India and Brazil, have balked at imposing sanctions because they rely on Russia for arms or goods. Russia is the largest source of weapons for India, and Brazil, one of the world’s largest agricultural producers and exporters, relies heavily on fertilizer from Russia and its ally Belarus.
Finally, the war is hitting Biden politically at home, too. In the new NBC poll, seven out of ten Americans said that they have low confidence in Biden’s ability to navigate the largest conflict in Europe since the Second World War. His approval rating is down to only forty per cent, the lowest since he took office, even though he has successfully rallied NATO after four years of Trump’s dividing and dismissing the alliance.
Biden’s original comment on Putin—a mere nine words—provided instant fodder for Republican rivals. Jim Risch, an Idaho Republican and the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called the ad-lib a “horrendous” mistake. “Please, Mr. President, stay on script,” he pleaded, on CNN. On Fox, Senator Ron Johnson, the Wisconsin Republican, said that Biden was no longer “physically or mentally” capable of leading the U.S. But the President only cemented his position on Monday, the repercussions be damned—whether from Putin, from Western allies, or in the midterm elections at home. Biden’s fate is now inextricably tied to the outcome of Putin’s war in Ukraine.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. (photo: Ukrainian Presidential Press Office/AP)
Ukraine’s military said it has noted withdrawals of some forces around Kyiv and Chernihiv. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told CNN “we haven’t seen anything to corroborate” reports of Russia pulling back significant forces from around Kyiv. “But what we have seen over the last couple of days is they have stopped trying to advance on Kyiv.”
Rob Lee, a military expert at the U.S.-based Foreign Policy Research Institute, tweeted: “This sounds like more of an acknowledgment of the situation around Kyiv where Russia’s advance has been stalled for weeks and Ukrainian forces have had recent successes. Russia doesn’t have the forces to encircle the city.”
The meeting Tuesday in Istanbul was the first time negotiators from Russia and Ukraine talked face-to-face in two weeks. Earlier talks, held in person in Belarus or by video, made no progress toward ending the more than month-long war that has killed thousands and driven over 10 million Ukrainians from their homes, including almost 4 million who have fled the country.
Fomin suggested there had been progress this time, saying “negotiations on preparing an agreement on Ukraine’s neutrality and non-nuclear status, as well as on giving Ukraine security guarantees, are turning to practical matters.”
Ukraine’s team set out a detailed framework for a peace deal under which the country would remain neutral but its security would be guaranteed by a group of third countries, including the U.S., Britain, France, Turkey, China and Poland, in an arrangement similar to NATO’s "an attack on one is an attack on all” principle.
Ukraine said it would also be willing to hold talks over a 15-year period on the future of the Crimean Peninsula, seized by Russia in 2014.
The Kremlin has demanded among other things that Ukraine drop any hope of joining NATO, which it sees as a threat.
Vladimir Medinskiy, the head of the Russian delegation, said on Russian TV that the Ukrainian proposals are a “step to meet us halfway, a clearly positive fact.” He cautioned that the parties are still far from reaching an agreement, but said: “We know now how to move further toward compromise. We aren’t just marking time in talks.”
In other developments:
— In what appeared to be a coordinated action to tackle Russian espionage, the Netherlands, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Ireland and North Macedonia expelled scores of Russian diplomats.
— The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency arrived in Ukraine to try to ensure the safety of the country’s nuclear facilities. Russian forces have taken control of the decommissioned Chernobyl plant, site in 1986 of the world’s worst nuclear accident, and of the active Zaporizhzhia plant, where a building was damaged in fighting.
— Russia has destroyed more than 60 religious buildings across the country in just over a month of war, with most of the damage concentrated near Kyiv and in the east, Ukraine’s military said.
— Bloomberg said it has suspended operations in Russia and Belarus. Customers in the two countries won’t be able to access any Bloomberg financial products, it said.
— In the room at the Istanbul talks was Roman Abramovich, a longtime Putin ally who has been sanctioned by Britain and the European Union. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Chelsea soccer team owner has been serving as an unofficial mediator approved by both countries. But mystery about his role has been deepened by news reports that he may have been poisoned during an earlier round of talks.
Over the past several days, Ukrainians forces have mounted counterattacks and reclaimed ground on the outskirts of Kyiv and other areas. They retook Irpin, a key suburb northwest of the capital, Kyiv, Zelenskyy said late Monday. But he warned that Russian troops were regrouping to take the area back.
Ukrainian forces also seized back Trostyanets, south of Sumy in the northeast, after weeks of Russian occupation that left a devastated landscape.
Arriving in the town Monday shortly afterward, The Associated Press saw the bodies of two Russian soldiers in the woods, and Russian tanks sat burned and twisted. A red “Z” marked a Russian truck, its windshield fractured, near stacked boxes of ammunition. Ukrainian forces on top of a tank flashed victory signs. Dazed residents lined up amid charred buildings, seeking aid.
Putin’s ground forces have been thwarted not just by stronger-than-expected Ukrainian resistance, but by what Western officials say are Russian tactical missteps, poor morale, shortages of food, fuel and cold weather gear, and other problems.
Reinforcing what the military said last week, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Tuesday that “liberating Donbas” is now Moscow’s main objective.
While that presents a possible face-saving exit strategy for Putin, it has also raised Ukrainian fears the Kremlin aims to split the country and force it to surrender a swath of its territory.
Special Coverage: Ukraine, A Historic Resistance
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