It’s pretty rare for heads of state to contradict one another publicly, particularly when both heads are supposedly allied. But that’s what’s happening recently as Ukrainian President Zelensky is trying to urge calm in the wake of President Biden’s comments on Russian troops possibly invading Ukraine.
US media has been awash with reports in recent weeks that Russia is amassing troops, field hospitals, and supplies of blood on the border with Ukraine. Numerous articles have breathlessly proclaimed that an invasion is imminent. And that’s not sitting well with Zelensky.
Zelensky has cautioned world leaders about their inflammatory rhetoric, stating that it is only serving to cause panic and unnecessarily worry people. The situation with Russia is not much different today as it was last year or the year before. Low-scale fighting continues in the east of the country, but the possibility of an invasion hasn’t grown at all.
But then again, who would actually believe that the President of Ukraine actually knows more about his country’s relationship with Russia than some random war-mongering think tank academics in Washington, DC? Those are the type of people Biden listens to, which explains his bellicose rhetoric. And according to press reports, Biden’s phone call with Zelensky last week didn’t go very well, with Zelensky trying to get Biden to calm down, while Biden maintained that an invasion was imminent.
If anything, the heated rhetoric from the US and UK is more likely to fan the flames of war than to get Putin to back down. And perhaps that’s the goal, to be so belligerent and provocative that when Putin responds by lashing out, Biden can say “I told you so.”
We have to hope that cooler minds will prevail, and that the DC talking heads who are constantly looking for a new country to infiltrate and invade will fail in their attempts to turn Ukraine into another battleground for US forces. No one would gain anything from war in Ukraine, not even Putin. The loss of life that would result would be catastrophic, and any “victory” on anyone’s part would likely be pyrrhic.
Now more than ever, diplomacy is of the utmost importance. Biden has screwed up the US enough already with high inflation and an economy that’s on the verge of recession. Let’s hope that he’s not stupid enough to get us bogged down into a major European war.