The situation in Ukraine improved significantly this week, but you wouldn’t know it from watching CNN.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reportedly had a gnarly confrontation with Mr. Joe Biden during their talk on the phone last Thursday. Biden insisted that a Russian invasion of Ukraine is imminent, while Zelensky (read about it on CNN). As I noted in a previous post, Biden badly needs to be a war president to distract the American public from a floundering economy, rising inflation, an out-of-control crime wave, and crumbling infrastructure (like this bridge that just collapsed in Pittsburg, injuring 10, while Biden’s bloated infrastructure bill stalls in the senate). Here’s the problem. Constantly preaching about an invasion being “imminent” will only work as if Russia actually invades at some point, or the American media can at least keep the idea plausible in our heads. Remember that Biden has been the boy who cried wolf practically since the first moment he took office. World War III is starting to get a little stale.
Why would Zelensky abruptly not play along with Biden’s game like he has been up to this point? Well, how’s Afghanistan doing? Biden’s troops abandoned key positions in the dead of night while their local “allies” slept, the government collapsed almost immediately, and then US banks froze Afghanistan’s assets, leaving the war-torn country on the brink of famine. Now look at what’s happening. Biden is partially evacuating his embassy staff from Ukraine and encouraging all American citizens to evacuate as well. This would help avoid chaos like what happened in the evacuation of Kabul, but it must not be encouraging for Ukrainians to watch. Biden is probably trying to turn Ukraine into another Afghanistan, a failed state brimming with weapons and violence that threatens Russia’s border, and I actually predicted this in a post more than a month ago.
Zelensky’s change of heart apparently caught Biden by surprise, but didn’t come out of the blue. Less than 24 hours previously, the Ukrainian government agreed to (another) ceasefire with the separatists in Donbass during Normandy Format talks in Paris. CNN “analyst Stephen Collinson insisted that this discord between Biden and Zelensky “plays right into Putin’s hands,“ and made vague calls for unity. Back to the real world. Let’s play a game and look at these two headlines about this development.
RT: Russia & Ukraine find common ground
CNN: Russia and Ukraine agree to continue ceasefire talks
Both of these headlines are technically true, but they’re pretty different, eh? And they’re about the same event! I wonder why CNN would run such a boring headline instead of the usual sensational propagandist clickbait they’re usually engaged in. Any guesses?
Meanwhile, the Hungarians informed the Biden administration that additional NATO troops in their country would be unnecessary. But why wouldn’t they take the threat of Russian invasion seriously? It might have something to do with their new nuclear power plants built and financed by Russians. Furthermore, they have long maintained a stance of keeping Ukraine out of NATO. Incidentally, Hungary was excluded from Biden’s democracy summit last November, implying that they’re a dictatorship. Is Hungary the next rogue nation that needs regime change?
I’ve complained enough for one day, here are some predictions:
–No Russian invasion of Ukraine in the foreseeable future
And definitely not in the January-February timeframe that Biden’s media cronies have been hollering about for weeks. The only possible exception is if some Ukronazis start trouble in Donbass (both Moscow and Minsk have stated they won’t tolerate “provocations” there), but I think even that possibility is becoming unlikely now.
The USA will sanction Russia anyway.
Because of course. But Biden won’t cut Russia off from SWIFT. That was a stupid threat to make and if Russia/China eventually decide to leave SWIFT anyway, America is not economically or politically in a position to do anything to stop it. And unless the EU wants to pay their gas bill with bags of money, they would have to join the new Chinese-Russian banking system too.
The USA will also sanction Ukraine.
Biden has already sanctioned Zelensky’s enemies. He’s even sanctioned sitting members of the Ukrainian parliament, the legislative body of our own “ally.” If Ukraine continues this drift toward Moscow, the Biden regime will probably get increasingly annoyed and desperate, and sanction them more and more, which of course would only incentivize the drift. Maybe Zelensky himself will become an “enemy of democracy” someday and be sanctioned too. Who knows.
Russia’s Gazprom will renew their gas transit deal with Ukraine’s Naftogaz.
The current contract is due to expire in 2024, and it is trendy in both the American and Russian media to speculate about Ukrainian transit being cut off. I’m apparently in the minority with this one, but I will be surprised if Gazprom doesn’t renew the contract. For starters, Nord Stream 2 and the Ukrainian pipelines are not mutually exclusive. Ukraine gets roughly US$3 billion in Gazprom transit revenue every year. For context, Ukraine’s entire military budget is US$6 billion. A thrown knife leaves the hand empty. Americans don’t understand this concept at all, and we’ve overused sanctions so much they’re a farce now (look at this Reuters article whining Russia’s import substitution policies are too good).
Both Russia and China seem to understand that soft power through economic influence works better than wars and sanctions. If the goal is to coax Ukraine out of the West’s corner and back to Mother Russia’s sphere of influence, then the gas must flow. And let’s not forget about influence on the EU. Despite the American media’s insistence that Russia wants gas to be expensive and limited, the opposite is more likely true. Keeping Russian gas cheap, abundant, and running through as many pipelines as possible (including Ukraine) will keep Europe dependent on it for decades while they play with renewables. By the time European progressives come to their senses, the Russian nuclear industry will be so far ahead of the game they’ll likely have that market cornered too.
Ian Kummer
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