Washington priestesses launch a counterattack

By Costas Raptis

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has no reason to be unhappy. “The first international conference of the year proves the special nature of our relations,” he wrote on Twitter after the phone conversation with US President Joe Biden on January 2. He added that the joint action of Washington, Kiev and their partners on “maintaining peace, preventing further escalation, promoting reforms and de-oligarchization” was discussed. of a small number of businessmen, including Rinat Akhmetov, whom Zelensky accused of plotting a pro-Russian coup in December – and the Ukrainian-Israeli-Cypriot tycoon Ihor Kolomoisky, who

However, according to White House spokeswoman Gene Psaki, Biden’s message to Zelensky was complex enough. In particular, the US president reportedly stressed to his interlocutor that the US and its Western allies would respond “decisively” in the event of Russia “further” invading Ukraine, underlined Washington’s commitment at the beginning “nothing for you without you”, while expressed support for confidence-building measures to de-escalate tensions in the Donbas and for active diplomacy to implement the Minsk Agreements under the Normandy (Russia-Ukraine-France-Germany).

In other words, the main topic of conversation was the desire of the White House tenant to dispel the impression that he would “empty” Kiev during the opening negotiations with Moscow, with successive stations within this month the US-Russian Strategic Dialogue, the NATO-Russia Council meeting and OSCE consultations, but also points to the implementation of the recently forgotten Minsk Agreement, which imposes on Kiev In the current political climate in Ukraine, concessions are being considered unacceptable, namely the revision of the Constitution and the granting of amnesty, so that the secessionist Donbass regions can return to Ukrainian sovereignty under autonomy.

It should be noted that the Minsk Agreements have been co-signed, under pressure from the mediating forces of the Normandy (excluding the US) and the representatives of the Donbass separatists, whom Kiev has not recognized as interlocutors since.

The “determination” with which Biden surrounds his position refers to a possibility, the “further invasion” of Russia in Ukraine, which the West itself is trying to inflate, without necessarily being useful in Moscow. Even the military measures that Putin leaves hovering as a last resort against Ukraine (but also any other “threat” on its western border!) Do not require the movement of a single soldier in the era of “surgical wounds”.

In any case, the US commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty and integrity should be relativized by Biden’s earlier statement that it precludes direct US military involvement in Ukraine.

The parallel monologues, however, have the benefit that as long as Washington and its allies grit their teeth at the (possibly imaginary) scenario of a “further Russian invasion”, the public debate over the subject matter of Moscow’s negotiation is avoided. real (albeit implemented so far through “salami”) expansion of NATO and its forces to the East.

The concern not to appear complacent pushes Biden to warn of overwhelming sanctions if Russia crosses the Rubicon. But the Washington clergy, realizing the real issue, are regrouping, projecting overwhelming sanctions as the best way to prevent any Russian move.

This is exactly what the head of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Federal House of Representatives, Adam Democrat of California, said, presenting the Russian invasion as almost inevitable, without imposing sanctions. In similar but less clear terms, 24 prominent former officials (including former Russian ambassadors to Ukraine Michael McFaul and Alexander Versbow, Steven Pifer and John Herbst, former central banker F. In their letter, they ask Biden to immediately, in particular, threaten Putin with overwhelming sanctions so that he can step back.

But Moscow has stressed in every possible way that any new sanctions would be a “colossal mistake” that would lead to a “severance of relations” (and obviously the reluctance of some to negotiate on the Russian agenda).

But at the US-Norwegian level, where not only economic but also diplomatic relations are limited, this “interruption” is not something shocking, but it has more to do with Russia, its main trading partner. ie the EU

The absence of a tight transatlantic front against it is a critical issue for Russia. And obviously a first response is the “new beginning” in German-Russian relations that German Chancellor Olaf Solz seeks to achieve “under his personal supervision” (ie bypassing Green Foreign Minister Analena Berbock), sending in January his foreign policy adviser Jens Plotter.