"[In all likelihood, China viewed Russia's invasion of Ukraine failing to gain its objective swiftly as] you don't achieve quick decisive victories with underwhelming force."

"Our sense is that it probably affects less the question of whether the Chinese leadership might choose some years down the road to use force to control Taiwan, but how and when they would do it."

"[The risks] become higher, it seems to us, the further into this decade that you get." 

"I suspect the lesson that the Chinese leadership and military are drawing is that you’ve got to amass overwhelming force if you’re going to contemplate that in the future."

"[China also has likely learned that it has to] control the information space [and] do everything you can to shore up your economy against the potential for sanctions."

William Burns, director, U.S. Central Intelligence Agency

President Tsai Ing-wen visits army reservists on exercises. The undertrained force has to be reformed to provide resilience against an attack by China  Ann Wang/Reuters

"[It would] severely undermine China's sovereignty and territorial integrity, gravely impact the foundation of China-U.S. relations and send a seriously wrong signal to Taiwan independence forces [should the United States continue to interfere in China's internal politics]."

Zhao Lijiant, spokesperson, Chinese Foreign Ministry

 

"[Beijing still prefers] peaceful reunification."

"[The US supports] independence [forces in Taiwan, where president Tsai Ing-wen has asserted the island’s separate identity]."

"No conflict and no war is the biggest consensus between China and the United States. [But the United States is] hollowing out and blurring [its stated policy of recognizing only Beijing]."

"Only by adhering strictly to the one-China policy, only by joining hands to constrain and oppose Taiwan independence, can we have a peaceful reunification."

Qin Gang, China’s ambassador to the United States

Taiwanese soldiers hold military drills in Taipei Credit: Ann Wang/Reuters

 China has been aggressively harassing Taipei, entering its air space as a warning that it is growing impatient with the island state's adamant refusal to rejoin the mainland. Beijing's ongoing efforts to isolate Taiwan on the world stage, refusing it recognition as a sovereign state, in the United Nations and in international diplomatic relations is just the initial step in its campaign to return Taiwan to China's tender care. Taiwan is alert to the imminence of an invasion.

The tension between mainland China and its breakaway republic is steadily increasing, thanks to China's more belligerent overtures. Now that Beijing has consolidated its premature hold over Hong Kong, Taiwan is next on its agenda. Xi Jinping makes no secret about his determination to bring Taiwan back into the fold, from its status as a defiant, breakaway republic. He did not hesitate to revoke Hong Kong's semi-autonomous status, despite a signed agreement that status would be in place for a fifty year period.

And nor will he allow world opinion and the censure along with an increased threat not only of economic sanctions imposed by the United States should Beijing move precipitously to regain what it feels it has unjustly lost, but the prospect of a wider conflict should the United States engage in supporting Taiwan with U.S. military intervention, as U.S. President Joe Biden recently asserted.

President Joe Biden, during a recent trip to Japan, told a reporter he was willing to use force to defend Taiwan  Eugene Hoshiko/Pool/EPA-EFE

 

 For Beijing and its president, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the goal somewhat similar in nature to Beijing's own, represents a test case whose prosecution and outcome presents as a lesson in what not to do for a successful and timely outcome in its plans for Taiwan. Moscow's 'strategic failure' is a lesson gained for Beijing, a primary observer directly related to its own, similar plans.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi - about as senior an American diplomatic presence as any next to the president himself -- plans to visit Taiwan in the coming month, despite that the U.S. military has cautioned her against such plans. Her original plan to visit Taipei in April was postponed when she tested positive for COVID-19. With news of her renewed intention to visit the region, stopping at Japan and Vietnam as well as Taiwan, Beijing has warned of 'repercussions'.

"We are indeed in the midst of very large-scale and thorough discussions both among ourselves and with the Americans right now about the things we need to do." 

"We are exploring a range of radically different ideas for making our country resilient, to build the features we need in wartime."

"Our goal is to be ready between 2025 and 2027 [for China's invasion and attempted occupation of Taiwan to secure 'reunification']."

Senior (unnamed) Taiwanese official

Taipei wants to retain military capabilities, such as its F-5 fighter jets, to counter Chinese incursions  Ritchie B Tongo/EPA-EFE

"It is true that the U.S.-China relationship is in a precarious and possibly dangerous place [given ongoing friction in bilateral ties and uncertainty related to China's domestic politics]."

\"I think that the United States should articulate a clear and consistent policy toward Taiwan and cross-strait issues."

"We have had a significant amount of confusion in U.S. policy that has led China to question what our intentions are."

Bonnie Glaser, director, Asia Programme, German Marshall Fund

Russians: 'You Will See Our Faces ... Not Our Backs'

"You have been told that this flame will bring liberation to Ukraine's people. But the Ukrainian people are free."

"Donetsk, which I have visited dozens of times? Where I looked in people's faces, in their eyes? Artyoma Street, where I strolled with friends? The Donbas Arena, where I rooted for our boys together with Ukrainian lads at the European Championships? Shcehrbakov Park, where I drank with friends when our boys lost?"

"Luhansk, where the mother of my best friend is buried? Where his father also rests?"

"Many of you have visited Ukraine. Many of you have relatives here. Some might have studied at Ukrainian universities and befriended Ukrainians. You know our character; you know our people, and you know our principles. You know what we value."

"So stop and listen to yourselves, to the voice of reason, to the voice of common sense."

"The Ukrainian people want peace, as does their government. We know for sure that we don't need the war. Not a Cold War, not a hot war. Not a hybrid one. But if these forces attack us, if they try to take our country away from us, our freedom, our lives, the lives of our children, we will defend ourselves.Not attack, but defend ourselves."

"And when you attack, you will see our faces. Not our backs, our faces."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, an appeal to Russia

The mass exodus of refugees from Ukraine to the eastern edge of the European Union showed no signs of stopping Monday as civilians flee Russia’s burgeoning war, with the United Nations estimating that more than half a million people have already escaped. Here, people wait in freezing conditions to board a bus bound for a refugee centre in Przemyśl, Poland, on Monday. (Bryan Woolston/Reuters)

 

Ukrainians are fleeing their country. In staggering numbers, on their way to becoming a full-scale refugee crisis in Europe not seen since the Second World War. A crisis that has been the result of Vladimir Putin's decision to mount a full-scale invasion on his neighbour, knowing full well that imposing the threat and the reality of countless deaths and destruction will inevitably cause hundreds of thousands of people to seek refuge elsewhere than where he has directed his military to strike.

And since he has directed his military to strike wholesale throughout the length and breadth of Ukraine, the response has been disastrous; refugee numbers are exploding from day to day. Several days earlier an estimated 368,000 Ukrainians fled to the borders of their European neighbours; Poland, Hungary, Moldova, Slovakia and Romania, with thousands more desperately attempting to forge their way through clogged borders.

People, frightened and vulnerable, waiting for hours in the cold, in cars, or on foot; with them the bare few belongings they could manage to assemble in their panic to escape. A 14-kilometre-long backlog was assembled at the crossing into Poland two days ago. Some people had been waiting for 40 hours in -18C night-time temperatures.

 

Ukrainian refugees are seen at the temporary refugee centre in a local primary school at Tiszabecs, eastern Hungary on Monday. (Attila Kisbenedek/AFP/Getty Images)

 

In 2015 over a million refugees flooded Europe's borders, coming from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, triggering a continent-wide crisis with some countries willing to accept some refugees and others adamant that they would not. And those that would not take in Muslim refugees fleeing the countries of their birth, beset by horrendous violence from Islamist forces and their very own leaders, are now opening their borders wide to Ukrainian refugees.

Countries such as Slovakia, Hungary and Poland, where their borders had been hardened on that earlier 2015 occasion, assailed by waves of refugees from the Middle East and North Africa are preparing to welcome Ukrainian refugees into their fold. German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser stated Germany was ready to offer Poland and other Eastern European countries support in the handling of the sudden Ukrainian refugee surge.

Up to five million of Ukraine's total 44 million population could become refugees, warns the United Nations, should Russia's attacks on Ukraine continue. For the most part it is women, children and the elderly who mass at the borders, since Ukrainian men have been barred from leaving, in light of President Zelensky having called on Ukrainian males to take up arms in defence of their country.

To complicate matter still further, a data-wiping software has hit a Ukrainian border control station processing people trying to enter Romania, according to a cybersecurity expert. "It's massively hitting the border control. They are processing people with pen and pencil." 

Poland is setting up reception centres along the contiguous 480-kilometre border with Ukraine, offering food, medical care and needed social welfare resources. Thousands of soldiers from the U.S. Army 82nd Airborne Division have been deployed to assist. In 15 hours on Saturday alone, 45,200 Ukrainian refugees crossed into Poland.

Refugees fill a warehouse in Poland after escaping Ukraine.

The Drums of War

"Peace on our continent has been shattered. Russia is using force to try to rewrite history, and deny Ukraine its free and independent path."

"This is a deliberate, cold-blooded and long-planned invasion. Russia's unjustified, unprovoked attack on Ukraine is putting countless innocent lives at risk with air and missile attacks."

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg

Missiles pounded Kyiv on Friday, Feb. 25, 2022, as Russian forces advance to the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital — a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched an invasion of Ukraine that has shocked the world. Here, Natali Sevriukova is seen next to her home in Kyiv after a rocket attack. (Emilio Morenatti/The Associated Press)

 

NATO plans to create combat units in Romania and Bulgaria, possibly Hungary and Slovakia as well, to reflect those already set up several years earlier in Poland and the Baltic states, as a deterrent to potential Russian aggression in Vladimir Putin's pathological delusion that he will go down in history with a legacy project fulfilled; the reincarnation of the Soviet Union by re-creating the forcible union that most of its neighbours dread.

No NATO troops were to be sent to Ukraine to aid its resistance to the Russian invasion. Ukraine is on its own. Its delicate state of ongoing oppression by Russia was what led NATO to keep Ukraine at arm's length, even though other former USSR satrapies have been accepted into the Alliance. Foreseeing just such an event occurring at some future date -- albeit not quite in the violent form currently seen -- led NATO to err on the side of caution.

"As recently as 2016, an operation on this scale would have required every battalion tactical group in Russia's ground forces; with more contract personnel, and thus more BTGs, Moscow can now undertake such a move while still retaining substantial forces elsewhere in Russia."

IISS Military Balance 2022 global military capacity survey

Ukraine, the second-largest country in Europe, is hugely outmatched against the largest geographic country in the world, Russia, despite materiel support that NATO countries have provided to the Ukraine military to help beef up its military arsenal. In 2020, military spending in Ukraine came in at about $6 billion, roughly a tenth of the figure for Russian military expenditures for the same year; $62 billion.

Russia has had quite a bit of practise in nipping away bits and pieces of the geography of former Soviet member-countries. As it did in Georgia, and that former Soviet satellite was left to defend itself and still lost two of its territories to Russia. Russian warplanes have had ample practise, not just the war games of recent vintage with Belarus, but real-time conflict flying aerial missions over Syria where it bombed civilian enclaves, along with hospitals.

Its practise run in 2014 with ethnic Russian rebels culminating for the time being with the seizing of the Crimean peninsula and portions of eastern Ukraine in the Donbas gave it ample practise for a long-range plan for total control and absorption of Ukraine in its bid for imperial influence over the former Soviet Union states. Ukraine has been viewed by President Putin as the jewel in its imperial crown, first to be wholly re-absorbed, leaving other former states in fear.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, when Russia was left a crumbling vestige of its former self, the ascension of Vladimir Putin to the presidency several decades ago saw Russia's vast reserves of gas and oil in huge demand throughout Europe. That source of income built Russia a formidable treasury, quite a bit of it used for rebuilding its military.

Enabling him at this juncture to deploy over 100,000 troops to the border with Ukraine and 30,000 in Belarus, a show of purpose for that military investment in the past 35 years. Reclaiming Abkhazia and South Ossetia were mere trifles to practise on; the absorption of Ukraine is more to the point for Mr. Putin's reemerging Greater Russia ambitions.

12 Russian battalion tactical groups were put into action around northeast Ukraine in 2015 during the war that wasn't quite a war, but as U.S. President named it, a 'minor incident'. Not, however, so minor to Ukraine which lost Crimea in that bitter encounter. Now, well over 100 battalion tactical groups have been deployed to make for this full-scale invasion from Russia and Belarus.

Ukraine has 290,000 military personnel, to Russia's 900,000, and Russia can call up another two million reservists, as compared to Ukraine's 900,000. The Russian army has over 12,000 tanks, with Ukraine in possession of less than 3,000. A similar imbalance exists in the numbers of armoured vehicles and artillery. Ukraine with its 34 attack helicopters and 98 jets is up against Russia's 500 attack helicopters and 1,500 fighter jets.

Ukrainian President Vlodomir Zelensky insists he's not leaving Kyiv as Russian forces close in on the Ukrainian capital.

Ukraine's Lonely Plight

"[The only way that Ukraine can end the crisis would be to surrender ambitions to join NATO, declaring neutrality], demilitarize, [and give up any territorial claim to Crimea]."

"We expect, and I want to underline this, that all the difficult questions will be solved during negotiations [between Kyiv and the separatist leadership]."

Russian President Vladimir Putin 

 

"We are committed to the peaceful and diplomatic path. We will follow it and only it."

"But we are on our own and, we are not afraid of anything and anybody."

"We owe nothing to no one, and we will give nothing to no one."

Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked Western nations for sanctions against Russia and warned that the future of European security is being decided 'now, here, in Ukraine.

"If Russia goes further with its invasion we stand prepared to go further with sanctions. Russia will pay an even steeper price if it continues its aggression."

Who in the Lord's name does Putin think gives him the right to declare new so-called countries on territory that belongs to his neighbours? This is a flagrant violation of international law. [He is] carving out a chunk of Ukraine."

"I have authorized additional movements of U.S. forces and equipment, already stationed in Europe, to strengthen our Baltic allies, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania."

"There is still time to avert the worst case scenario that will bring untold suffering to millions of people."

U.S. President Joe Biden

Ukrainian service members take part in tactical drills at a training ground in an unknown location in Ukraine, in this handout picture released Feb. 22, 2022. (Press service of the Ukrainian Armed Forces General Staff/Handout via Reuters)

 

How much 'further with its invasion' must Moscow go to enable Washington to identify geographical theft that goes somewhat beyond the 'minor incident' that Mr. Biden mused about several weeks ago, leaving the impression that NATO and the U.S. could somehow overlook something as 'minor' as, say a repeat of the 2014 invasion and annexation of Crimea? The U.S. is a large country geographically, though not as large as Russia.

What would be the NATO and U.S. response if Russia looked with avarice at a territory it once owned and sold to the United States for a pittance? What would happen in response, as an example of a 'minor incident', if Russia decided to invade Alaska reclaiming it as a territorial imperative, that it should never have been released from Russian ownership. It is, after all, much closer geographically to Russia than it is to the United States....

Alaskans would be threatened by the 'occupation' and the governance of a country for whom violence is of little account in claiming what it insists is its by historical account, a heritage property beyond dispute... The social, civil upheaval with the resulting dispersal of civilian populations would be enormous and tragic; reflecting what Ukrainian citizens living in the occupied and now virtually annexed Donbas region of Donetsk and Luhansk face.

 

Ukrainians attend a rally Wednesday to protest after Moscow's decision to formally recognize two Russian-backed regions of Eastern Ukraine as independent. (Carlos Barria/Reuters)

Anger and determination to oppose Russia, on the part of those territories' civilian populations will have them bearing arms and fighting for their right to remain under Ukraine governance for they are Ukrainian and it is their country and their children's futures they fight for. Using the pretext of 'backing' the territorial claims of ethnic Russian separatists is a transparent ploy to invite Ukraine to order its military to greater action in defending Ukraine territory.

Giving Vladimir Putin the final reason he agitates toward to ignite a wider conflict. Mr. Biden's words of assurance to Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania, along with Poland and others, will ring empty when viewed through the lens of European and NATO inaction in supporting Ukraine. It is the entire Donbas region that will find its way into the Russian Federation, and a little more gradually, more of Ukraine, as it defends itself against a vastly superior military machine.

Of course, Mr. Putin himself expanded the message of 'diplomatic action' when he stated it to be "impossible to predict" just how far he planned to probe  his military into Ukraine; his troops would enter and it would "depend on the specific situation on the ground". As though to say that if Ukraine is unreasonable and decides to defend itself irrespective of the losses -- of human life and territory -- then poor, abused Russia will have little choice but to bulldoze through all of Ukraine....

Police officers and members of the Ukrainian National Guard are seen outside the Russian Embassy in Kyiv on Wednesday. (Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters)

Russia, Pulling Out All The Stops

Soldiers inspect the remains of a car that the Russian-backed separatists claim was blown up outside their headquarters in Donetsk. Photograph: Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters

 

"[NATO and European leaders shared a call with me to discuss] Russia’s buildup of military troops on the border of Ukraine and our continued efforts to pursue deterrence and diplomacy."

"The bottom line is this: The United States and our allies and partners will support the Ukrainian people."

"We will hold Russia accountable for its actions. The West is united and resolved. We’re ready to impose severe sanctions on Russia if it further invades Ukraine."

U.S. President Joe Biden

 

"While of limited impact, this recent spate of cyber attacks in Ukraine are consistent with what a Russian effort could look like, and laying the groundwork for more disruptive cyberattacks accompanying a potential further invasion of Ukraine sovereign territory."

Deputy U.S. National Security adviser for cyber and emerging technology Anne Neuberger 

"[Moscow-backed separatists were] placing its artillery systems near residential buildings [in the hope Kyiv's forces would return fire."

"A day earlier, the Russian-backed separatists were responsible for] a big provocation [after the shelling of a kindergarten in territory controlled by the Ukrainian government."

"We are constantly faced with provocations, shelling, cyberattacks, dangerous maneuvers of aviation, disabling of mobile communications."

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov

Several hundred thousand citizens in the breakaway republics have been issued Russian passports in recent years. Nikolai Trishin / TASS

"The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, will soon order the military to go on the offensive, implement a plan to invade the territory of the Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics."

"Their weapons are pointed at civilians today."

"Women, children and the elderly are to be evacuated first."

"[Evacuation into the neighboring Rostov region has been coordinated with] Russian leadership."

Denis Pushilin, leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic

 

"All Kyiv has to do is sit down at the negotiation table with representatives of the Donbas and agree on political, military, economic and humanitarian measures to end the conflict."

Russian President Vladimir Putin   

People inside a bus arranged to evacuate local residents from the separatist-controlled city of Donetsk. Photograph: Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters

"Unfortunately, we don’t have a cellar, but we heard the first noises, the teachers quickly took all the children and rushed them into the corridor where there are no windows, and got them all to lie on the floor."

"Then we felt the close-up hit, the building shook and we could hear smashed glass. There was real hysteria, the children were all screaming."

Elena Yaryna, School head teacher, Vrubivka, Eastern Ukraine

Russia is fully engaged in exploring all possible scenarios where it can cast blame on Ukraine for provoking Russia into a conflict that Russia itself purportedly has ostensibly no wish to pursue. But, should Kyiv continue to tax Russia's patience and goodwill to force its neighbour into a war situation, Russia will not flinch, but will enter battle to protect its interests; namely its territory in Crimea, and the lives and future of ethnic Russian Ukrainians in the Donbass region of Ukraine.

Ukraine continues to push Russia into this impossible situation where it must engage militarily for its own security and that of its people and its territories. The Ukrainian military given orders to continue shelling positions in Donetsk and Luhansk, endangering the lives of residents there and pushing the leaders of those territories, now separate from Ukraine, to defend themselves. Ukraine forces bombing an elementary school. These scurrilous attacks on innocent people by Kyiv-ordered military are quite simply intolerable.

Or they would be, if they weren't set-ups, like the bombing of a vehicle supposedly belonging to one of the separatist leaders, all leading to incredible  reasons why Moscow has been pushed to its limits to respond to Ukrainian aggression. An aggression meant to drive out the leaders of Luhanks and Donetsk, meant to drive Russia away from the Crimean Peninsula so critical to Russia's interests. Fierce aggression on the part of Ukraine has driven the leaders of the People's Republics of Luhansk and Donetsk to consider the safety of civilians, two million people who now must be evacuated.

That's the perspective of the Russian propaganda published in Russia for the edification of Russians who have no wish to engage in a war with their neighbour but whom their government thinks of as being credulous enough to believe what it claims. For they are either patriotic, loyal to the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin, or they are traitors to the Russian Federation. Moscow claims the move to evacuate Russian Ukrainians to feed a sense of panic meant to lead to 'defensive' moves against Ukrainian aggression, was not discussed beforehand with their leadership.

A big surprise, although Moscow has offered to each of the evacuees, a bonus gift of 10,000 rubles (equivalent to US$130), food, lodging and medical care. Uprooting two million people to 'prove' that the situation is so dangerously dire as a result of Ukrainian aggression that such a desperate action is needed and justifiable. There was a response from the U.S., the administration characterizing the evacuation as a "cynical" move by Moscow.

"Announcements like these are further attempts to obscure through lies and disinformation that Russia is the aggressor in this conflict", clarified a State Department spokesperson. "It is also cynical and cruel to use human beings as pawns to distract the world from the fact that Russia is building up its forces in preparation for an attack."

But there it is; civilians packed onto buses in eastern Ukraine, headed for Russia. Russia took measures years ago to issue Russian passports to ethnic Russian Ukrainians in the Donbass. Manipulating people on such a large-scale basis to further Mr. Putin's plan of manoeuvring Ukraine into a response that would ignite the conflict he is so determined to launch is, in very fact, not only cynical but cruel. A testament to his incorrigible aspirations to absorb Ukraine once again into the Russian Federation.

"There are no orders to liberate our territories by force", responded Oleksiy Danilov, Ukraine's top security authority. Families were ordered to assemble to board buses at an evacuation point in Donetsk where the intention is to have 700,000 people transported to Russia. Some refuse to go; male civilians are urged to join the separatists to fight for their country, and the country they're urged to fight for is not Ukraine. "This is my motherland and the land is ours, I will stay and put out the fires", said 62-year-old Konstantin Lysanov.

Intense artillery bombardment has unsettled residents. Ukraine states that the separatist rebel militias initiated the violence, and Ukraine is accused by the militia leaders of Donetsk and Luhansk of launching the original volleys. As far as the West is concerned, the shelling which intensified in recent days would be just another attempt by Vladimir Putin's government for a pretext to justify an attack on Ukraine. 

Of the former 14 republics under Russian control during the days of the USSR, Ukraine's decision to leave Russia for independence was Russia's most painful loss, one that Mr. Putin refers to as the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the last century when the Soviet Union dissolved. He has set his legacy aspiration on restoring Russia's global power standing through defiance of the West. As a result, fear of a wider war in Europe has affected markets and produced a diplomatic crisis. 

"We see additional forces going to the border including leading edge forces", U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken informed the Munich Security Conference, noting that American intelligence assesses that Russia now has about 50 percent of its total forces assembled to confront Ukraine on all fronts across its vast territory bordering Russia and Belarus and the separatist territories. "This is the most significant military mobilization in Europe since the Second World War", U.S. ambassador Michael Carpenter noted.

Check, Mate

The phone call had been delayed since Monday owing to Johnson’s need to answer questions on the Sue Gray report. Photograph: Tayfun Salcı/Zuma/Rex/Shutterstock

"The prime minister expressed his deep concern about Russia's current hostile activity on the Ukrainian border,"

"He emphasized the need to find a way forward which respects both Ukraine's territorial integrity and right to self-defense. The prime minister stressed that any further Russian incursion into Ukrainian territory would be a tragic miscalculation."

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Office

 

"It's already clear now ... that fundamental Russian concerns were ignored."

"Let's imagine Ukraine is a NATO member and starts these military operations. Are we supposed to go to war with the NATO bloc?"

"Has anyone given that any thought? Apparently not."

Russian President Vladimir Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a session of the board of trustees of the Russian Geographical Society via a video conference call in Moscow (credit: VIA REUTERS)

Indeed, much attention has been given to that question. It is actually so fundamental to the reason that Ukraine would like to be a member of NATO, like some of its neighbours. For the assurance that Moscow would think deeply about what it is considering in returning Russia to its former glory days of absorbing its near-abroad neighbours once again into the warm embrace of its octopus grasp as satellites revolving around Soviet Russia.

 

And it is precisely that aspiration that so concerns Russia's neighbours that they grasp at the opportunity of having the assurance that a group will be looking out for their interests of sovereignty and security. So Mr. Putin in posing that hypothetical question is merely being disingenuous. His actions belie innocence of that knowledge and the question answers itself poignantly in the dread memories haunting the former captive members of the USSR.

On Tuesday Mr. Putin accused the West of ignoring Russia's security concerns, deliberately creating a war scenario to suit their purposes with the added insult of humiliating Russia. On Wednesday, Mr. Putin shared a conversation with Britain's Prime Minister, but before that conversation took place, an odd occurrence had Britain slightly on edge as they scrambled fighters to 'escort' Russian bombers approaching British airspace. Intimidation? heaven forfend such a thought...!

 

A Russian TU-95 bomber   photo credit: REUTERS)

"Quick Reaction Alert Typhoon fighters based at RAF Lossiemouth supported by a Voyager from RAF Brize Norton were scrambled today against unidentified aircraft approaching the UK area of interest."

"Subsequently, we intercepted and escorted four Russian Bear aircraft,"

Royal Air Force spokesman

Mr. Putin shared a news conference with the prime minister of Hungary, visiting, as one of several NATO leaders making an effort to intercede with him, during the crisis where it is abundantly apparent that Russia has planned another invasion of Ukraine. Mr. Putin, defiant against NATO demands that he have Russian troops and armaments removed from the border with Ukraine, has no intention of backing away from his own security demands.

NATO warns Russia that it will not tolerate an invasion of a sovereign nation without exacting painful sanctions against Russia, while Russia insists that it has the right and the will power to persuade the Western alliance to withdraw its presence from Russia's near-abroad -- where NATO member-states have sent troops to other invasion-vulnerable former satellites of the USSR -- and never consider allowing Ukraine to join the alliance.

Russia, which in 2014 surprised the international community by invading Ukraine -- and supporting ethnic Russian Ukrainian separatist rebels in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine in their violent separation aspirations in Donetsk and Luhansk, then swooped in on the Crimean peninsula to claim it as Russian territory -- expresses concern that as a member of NATO Ukraine might take it upon itself to reclaim Crimea, is downright risible.

With over 100,000 troops massed on the border with Ukraine, setting itself up for an invasion, Russia denies it has any such intentions; the troops, the arms, and the field hospitals are merely a practise performance, not a rehearsal. However, it now says, should its security demands not be met it could decide to take military action of an unspecified nature. Denials and verification.

"If President Putin really does not intend war or regime change, the Secretary [U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken] told Foreign Minister Lavrov then this is the time to pull back troops and heavy weaponry and engage in a serious discussion ... that can enhance collective European security."

U.S. State Department official

President Putin has been silent since mid-December until the present, with an atmosphere of ambiguity on his decision-making, inspiring diplomats from Russia and the West to engage in repeated rounds of talks in the hope of defusing the crisis. His remarks this week paint a picture of Russia's need to defend itself from a hostile U.S. concerned not with Ukraine's security, but its intention to contain Russia.

And just as Russia refuses to be dictated to by the United States, the Biden administration has now announced its decision to deploy 2,000 troops from Fort Bragg, members of the 82nd Airborne Division infantry brigade to go to Poland. The deployment, said Poland's Defense Minister is "a strong signal of solidarity in response to the situation in Ukraine".

 

Of the total number, several hundred with the 18th Airborne Corps are set to arrive in Germany representing what the Pentagon spoke of as a "joint task force-capable headquarters". And Mr. Putin is free to make of that what he will.

A Ukrainian serviceman on the frontline in Donetsk. Photograph: Anatolii Stepanov/AFP/Getty Images

 

Agreeing to Disagee : With Prejudice

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said the US and NATO are creating panic in his country over a potential Russian invasion   Future Publishing via Getty Images

"I'm the president of Ukraine, I'm based here and I think I know the details deeper than any other president."

"Do we have tanks on the streets? They go around saying 'War starts tomorrow'."

"It creates panic. Panic in the financial sector. It costs Ukraine a lot."

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky

 

"Compared to the document we received from NATO, the U.S. response could almost be called a paragon of diplomatic politesse."

"If it depends on Russia, there will be no war. We don't want wars. But we also won't allow our interests to be rudely trampled, to be ignored."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov

 

"[Russia has massed enough forces to launch a full-scale invasion -- of Ukraine -- with] little warning."

"[The Russian buildup is] larger in scale and scope than anything we've seen in recent memory."

U.S. General Mark Milley, chairman, U.S. joint chiefs of staff

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said in December that his demands must be addressed “right away, right now.”Credit...Pool photo by Aleksey Nikolskyi

Ukraine's president feels as though he and his country are being pushed around. Not only by his country's former nemesis and its current incarnation, but also by the very countries that have stepped into the breach of threatening standoff, and in their eagerness to promote their version of what may be expected to occur, and when, creating an indelible internal aura of stress and panic. Whereas President Zelensky would prefer projecting an air of confidence over a situation that would have grave consequences for the sovereign right of his country, putting up a brave facade while appealing to the West to exert pressure on Moscow, he hears stark predictions of impending disaster.

Predictions that seem to him premature, that all diplomatic overtures have not been fully employed to de-escalate; rather than exacerbate tensions, those who claim to be committed to Ukraine's salvation as a securely independent member of the international community of nations are being unnecessarily provocative and heating up their exchanges in volumes of threats and repercussions. 

The White House, he publicly complained was "amplifying" the risk Ukraine is facing, an alarmist attitude too extreme to reflect the current situation which, he emphases, represents a "mistake in my opinion", a surprising rebuke to the rash statements of approaching doom expressed by the White House. The comments emerged following a telephone call with President Biden, a call that a Ukrainian official described as one that "did not go well".

"On the one hand, [Zelensky] wants assistance. But on the other, he has to assure his people he has the situation under control. That's a tricky balance", observed a White House official. The sense of swiftly impending collision between NATO, the United States, Ukraine and Russia has been heightened by a new revelation that the military buildup of Russian troops and equipment on the border with Ukraine has expanded to the inclusion of blood supplies required for anticipated casualties in the event of an imminent conflict.

In communications with France's President Macron, Mr. Putin spoke of the West having "ignored" security concerns expressed by Russia over its perception of NATO expansion into Russia's near-abroad, a geography that Vladimir Putin regards as Russia's diplomatic-political domain into which a Western presence has become a destabilizing feature and a threat to Russia's relationships with its near neighbours. According to a French official, Mr. Putin indicated "very clearly that he did not want confrontation".

And nor would Beijing -- Moscow's great good friend and collegial partner in defending joint interests against Western interference -- appreciate violent confrontation. At least not right now. It would be most inconvenient, most unsuitable in view of their warm relations, for Russia to embark on an incendiary war situation that would surely spread and absorb the world's attention at the very time that China is hosting the Winter Olympics.

A White House official notes that Russia'a protestations of having no intention of invading its neighbour is welcome, but it would be far more convincing for it to withdraw its troops from Ukraine's border. Mr. Putin has been accused by the U.S. ambassador in Moscow of "putting a gun on the table and saying 'I come in peace'." 

Russia has been given assurances from the U.S. that such a withdrawal would entitle it in exchange to have a delegation of Russian inspectors visit missile sites entrenched by the U.S. in Poland and Romania to reduce its fears that the missiles are aimed at Russia, and not as claimed, in the direction of Iran. In the relentless standoff, the U.S. now considers an action independent of NATO to itself and the U.K. in a "coalition of the willing" to include other allies, moving troops closer to Russia to deter Putin's plans.

A Ukrainian service member kneels next to a howitzer during artillery and anti-aircraft drills near the border with Russian-annexed Crimea in the Kherson region of Ukraine.

via REUTERS