The strange policy, pursued by the present occupant of the White House during the past few weeks is fairly surprising. Moreover, Joe Biden’s actions vis-à-vis Russia are downright contradictory, to say the least. Or maybe his strange initiatives are sending some ulterior message to the team around him and those who supported last fall’s very dirty elections?
On the morning of April 15, President Joe Biden signed a presidential directive introducing a new batch of anti-Russian sanctions. The move sent the Russian ruble slightly down and prompted new statements by Russian politicians about the need to brace up for an even greater break with the West, and even of switching Russian banks from the SWIFT system of international financial transactions. Moreover, competent sources say that the prospect, fraught with a severe collapse of Russia’s national currency, prevented Moscow from snapping up in 2014 the whole of what Russians call Malorossiya (Little Russia). Six years on, Russia is ready to face up to this threat now that it has its very own national payment system MIR, and its Chinese partners are ready to introduce en masse their UnionPay system. Chances are that Moscow will eventually abandon SWIFT and deprive Washington and Brussels of one of the few remaining levers of pressure on Russia.
However, just a day earlier, Biden had been negotiating, and sort of agreed about a meeting with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin within the next few weeks. Well, there are things that need to be settled on a personal level, of course. And still, “within a few weeks” means an "emergency” summit. Even the leaders of small countries do not schedule one-on-one meetings at such a short notice as bilateral summits, especially between great power leaders normally take a year and more to prepare. Therefore, “a few weeks” is a very inconvenient period for diplomatic protocol and security officials, advisers and the staff of heads of state. Moreover, such a rush does not become the leader of a superpower and an elderly, respectable and career politician at that.
One obvious explanation for such a rush could be the looming military standoff between Russia and Ukraine. Confused by conflicting instructions from the old and new US administrations, and forced to maneuver between his own oligarchs and the far-right forces, Ukraine’s President Zelenskiy is apparently unable to pursue a pragmatic policy. He cannot take a step back, Ukraine’s resources are not sufficient enough for any lengthy arms rattling along the borders of the unrecognized Donetsk and Lugansk republics, and he has very small chances of a blitzkrieg. As a result, a war can break out simply by accident or as a result of actions by some trigger-happy mid-rank commander on the ground.
However, it looks like Washington may find itself the winner no matter how the war may unfold. Kiev’s victory and the return of Donetsk and Lugansk under its control will seriously undermine Putin's position both at home and on the international front. On the other hand, Kiev’s local defeat will give an excellent reason for slapping new sanctions on Moscow, including the Nord Stream project, which prevents the United States from selling its liquefied natural gas to Europe. Well, the hypothetical Russian offensive and the reunification of Novorossiya and Little Russia with Russia will make it possible to declare the Russian Federation an evil empire, will force the NATO allies to ramp up their defense outlays and spend money on deploying additional US military contingents on their soil. The problem for Russia is that it does not have enough resources to quickly and effectively integrate even the 4.5 million-strong Novorossiya (Odessa, Kherson and Nikolayev regions), let alone the whole of Eastern Ukraine. Meanwhile, to feed the "Kremlin monster" Ukraine and wait for it to die from indigestion would seem a simple way out from Washington. And still, Biden goes to negotiate, demonstrating his readiness for playing hardball (after all, he introduced new sanctions after agreeing to a meeting). Why?
Throughout last year, many Ukrainian and later US politicians, led by former New York mayor and Trump’s lawyer Rudolph Giuliani were trying hard to draw public attention to Hunter Biden’s allegedly corrupt business dealings in Ukraine, backed by his father, Joe Biden (in April 2014, the son of the then US Vice President, Hunter Biden joined the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings.
The Ukrainians, including their former Prosecutor General, provided strong enough evidence of funds withdrawn via Burisma and exorbitant salaries paid to foreign directors. President Donald Trump personally intervened in support of the investigation as it turned out that many businessmen with links to the Democratic Party had been somehow involved in murky financial dealings in Ukraine. However, the investigation was gradually rolled up. But wasn’t Burisma just the tip of the corruption iceberg? It was the Democratic US administration that removed Ukraine’s pro-Moscow President Viktor Yanukovych. Since March 2014, Kiev has been taking recommendations by US ambassadors as direct instructions. The independent policies of the two pro-Western presidents, Poroshenko and Zelenskiy, have always been a big question. Meanwhile, impoverished Ukraine is a potentially very rich region with lots of fertile land and mineral resources, but the authorities are still unable to support local businesses and agrarians, even if they wanted to. Since 2014, the country has consistently been bending under IMF demands jacking up tariffs, abandoning any protectionist measures, and losing any control over foreign investors. Therefore, it is very hard to say just how many business assets in Ukraine are actually controlled by US Democrats. And if we assume that in exchange for political support Biden and his entourage handed out lucrative contracts to local businessmen under their control, then the situation for the US leader looks absolutely critical.
Well, even if Zelenskiy surrenders to Russian tankmen, goes to Moscow and comes clean about Biden's unsightly role in organizing corruption schemes, the Democratic Party’s powerful propaganda machine will still cope with that. Gone are the days when direct evidence of corruption and other crimes led to the resignation of politicians. That being said, what will Biden tell his business partners if the Russians win? Moreover, any military defeat could be the end of Ukraine as an independent state. The only alternative is direct military support for Zelensky, but this would be a shortcut to the Third World War, where there will be no winners!
