{"id":201396,"date":"2021-12-20T12:00:09","date_gmt":"2021-12-20T12:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=201396"},"modified":"2021-12-14T04:22:11","modified_gmt":"2021-12-14T04:22:11","slug":"what-putin-really-told-biden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/12\/what-putin-really-told-biden\/","title":{"rendered":"What Putin Really Told Biden"},"content":{"rendered":"

Russian and US leaders dropped their respective rhetorical gauntlets but nobody really expects Russia to invade Ukraine.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>

US President Joe Biden has spelled out his approach to Russia and its leader Vladimir Putin.
Photo: AFP \/ Jim Watson and Grigory Dukor<\/p><\/div>\n

8 Dec 2021 – <\/em>So Russian President Vladimir Putin, by himself, and United States President Joe Biden, surrounded by aides, finally had their secret video link conference for two hours and two minutes \u2013 with translators placed in different rooms.<\/p>\n

That was their first serious exchange since they met in person in Geneva last June \u2013 the first Russia-US summit since 2018. For global public opinion, led to believe a \u201cwar\u201d in Ukraine was all but imminent, what\u2019s left is essentially a torrent of spin.<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s start with a simple exercise focusing on the key issue of the video link \u2013 Ukraine \u2013 contrasting the White House and Kremlin versions of what transpired.<\/p>\n

The White House: Biden made it \u201cclear\u201d to Putin that the US and allies will respond with \u201cdecisive economic and other measures\u201d to a military escalation in Ukraine. At the same time, Biden called on Putin to de-escalate around Ukraine and \u201creturn to diplomacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kremlin: Putin offered Biden to nullify all restrictions on the functioning of diplomatic missions. He remarked that cooperation between Russia and the US is still in an \u201cunsatisfactory\u201d state.<\/p>\n

He urged the US not to shift \u201cresponsibility on the shoulders of Russia\u201d for the escalation of the situation around Ukraine.<\/p>\n

The White House: The US will expand military aid to Ukraine if Russia takes steps against it.<\/p>\n

Kremlin: Putin told Biden that Russia is interested in obtaining legally fixed guarantees excluding NATO\u2019s eastward expansion and the deployment of offensive strike systems in Russia\u2019s neighboring countries.<\/p>\n

The White House: Biden did not give Putin any commitments that Ukraine will remain outside NATO.<\/p>\n

Minsk or bust<\/h4>\n

Now for what really matters: the red line.<\/p>\n

What Putin diplomatically told Team Biden, sitting at their table, is that Russia\u2019s red line \u2013 no Ukraine in NATO \u2013 is unmovable. The same applies to Ukraine turned into a hub of the Pentagon\u2019s empire of bases and hosting NATO weaponry.<\/p>\n

Washington may deny it ad infinitum<\/em>, but Ukraine is part of Russia\u2019s sphere of influence. If nothing is done to force Kiev to abide by the Minsk Agreement, Russia will \u201cneutralize\u201d the threat on its own terms.<\/p>\n

The root cause of all this drama, absent from any NATO narrative, is straightforward: Kiev simply refuses to respect the February 2015 Minsk Agreement.<\/p>\n

According to the deal, Kiev should grant autonomy to Donbass via a constitutional amendment, referred to as \u201cspecial status\u201d; issue a general amnesty; and start a dialogue with the people\u2019s republics of Donetsk and Lugansk.<\/p>\n

Over the years, Kiev fulfilled less than zero of these commitments \u2013 while the NATO media machine kept spinning that Russia was violating Minsk. Russia is not even mentioned<\/em> (italics mine) in the agreement.<\/p>\n

Moscow always respected the Minsk Agreement, which establishes Donbass as an integral, autonomous part of Ukraine. Russia has made it very clear, over and over again, it has no interest whatsoever in promoting regime change in Kiev.<\/p>\n

Before the video link, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov remarked: \u201cPutin will listen to Biden\u2019s proposals on Ukraine \u2018with great interest.’\u201d Even the White House did not propose for Kiev to obey the Minsk Agreement. So regardless of what Biden may have said, Putin, pragmatically, will adopt a \u201cwait and see\u201d approach, and then act accordingly.<\/p>\n

In the run-up to the video link, maximum hype revolved on Washington seeking to stop Nord Stream 2 if Russia \u201cinvades\u201d Ukraine.<\/p>\n

What never transpires out of the \u201cinvasion\u201d narrative, repeated ad nauseam across NATO, is that hawks overseeing an immensely polarized US, corroded from the inside, desperately need a war in what military analyst Andrei Martyanov calls \u201ccountry 404,\u201d a play on the error message when an online page or link doesn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n

The crux of the matter is that European vassals must not have access to Russian energy: only American LNG.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s what led the most extreme Russophobes in Washington to start threatening sanctions on Putin\u2019s inner circle, Russian energy producers and even disconnecting Russia from SWIFT. All that was supposed to prevent Russia from \u201cinvading\u201d Country 404.<\/p>\n

US Secretary of State Tony Blinken \u2013 present at the video link \u2013 said a few days ago in Riga, Latvia, that \u201cif Russia invades Ukraine,\u201d NATO will respond \u201cwith a range of high impact economic measures.\u201d As for\u00a0NATO, it\u2019s far from aggressive: just a \u201cdefensive\u201d organization.<\/p>\n

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, in early December at the OCSE Ministerial Council meeting in Stockholm, was already warning that \u201cstrategic stability\u201d in Europe was \u201crapidly eroding.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lavrov said: \u201cNATO refuses to consider our proposals on de-escalation of tensions and prevention of dangerous incidents \u2026 On the contrary, the alliance\u2019s military infrastructure is moving closer to Russia\u2019s borders \u2026 The nightmarish scenario of military confrontation is returning.\u201d<\/p>\n

So no wonder the heart of the matter for Moscow is NATO encroachment. The \u201cinvasion\u201d narrative is crass fake news sold as fact. Even the CIA\u2019s William Burns admitted<\/a> that US intel had no intel to \u201cconclude\u201d that Russia will dutifully answer the War Inc prayers and finally \u201cinvade\u201d Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Still, that did not prevent a German sensationalist rag from presenting the full contours of the Russian blitzkrieg<\/a>, when the actual story is the US and NATO attempting to push \u201ccountry 404\u201d to commit suicide by attacking the people\u2019s republics of Donetsk and Lugansk.<\/p>\n

That legally binding guarantee<\/h4>\n

It\u2019s idle to expect the video link to produce practical results. As NATO remains mired in concentric crises, the current level of high tension between NATO and Russia is a gift from heaven in terms of maintaining the convenient narrative of an external Slavic evil. It\u2019s also an extra bonus for the military-industrial-intelligence-media think tank complex.<\/p>\n

The tension will continue to simmer without becoming incandescent only if NATO does not expand in any shape or form inside Ukraine. Diplomats in Brussels routinely comment that Kiev will never be accepted as a NATO member. But if things can get worse, they will: Kiev will become one of those NATO special partners, a desperately poor, hungry for territory, rogue actor.<\/p>\n

Putin demanding from the US \u2013 which runs NATO \u2013 a written, legally binding guarantee that the alliance will not advance further eastward towards Russian borders is the game-changer here.<\/p>\n

Team Biden cannot possibly deliver: they would be eaten alive by the War Inc establishment. Putin studied his history and knows that Daddy Bush\u2019s \u201cpromise\u201d to Gorbachev on NATO expansion was just a lie. He knows those who run NATO will never commit themselves in writing.<\/p>\n

So that allows Putin a full range of options to defend Russian national security. \u201cInvasion\u201d is a joke; Ukraine, rotting from the inside, consumed by fear, loathing and poverty, will remain in limbo, while Donetsk and Lugansk will be progressively interconnected with the Russian Federation.<\/p>\n

There will be no NATO war on Russia \u2013 as Martyanov himself <\/a>has extensively demonstrated NATO wouldn\u2019t last five minutes against Russian hypersonic weapons. And Moscow will be focused on what really matters geoeconomically and geopolitically: solidifying the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) and the Greater Eurasia Partnership.<\/p>\n

_______________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> Pepe Escobar, born in Brazil, is a correspondent and editor-at-large at <\/em>Asia Times and<\/em> columnist for<\/em> Consortium News and<\/em> Strategic Culture in Moscow. Since the mid-1980s he\u2019s lived and worked as a foreign correspondent in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Singapore, and Bangkok. He has extensively covered Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia to China, Iran, Iraq and the wider Middle East. He is the author of <\/em>Globalistan<\/a> (2007),<\/em> Red Zone Blues<\/a> (2007), <\/em>Obama Does Globalistan<\/a> (2009), <\/em>Empire of Chaos<\/a> (2014) and <\/em>2030<\/a> (2015), all by Nimble Books. Pepe was contributing editor to <\/em>The Empire and The Crescent and<\/em> Tutto in Vendita in Italy and is also associated with the Paris-based European Academy of Geopolitics. When not on the road he lives between Paris and Bangkok. <\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 asiatimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

8 Dec 2021 – So Russian President Vladimir Putin, by himself, and United States President Joe Biden, surrounded by aides, finally had their secret video link conference for two hours and two minutes \u2013 with translators placed in different rooms. Both leaders dropped their respective rhetorical gauntlets but nobody really expects Russia to invade Ukraine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":201397,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[2197,253,278,961,70],"class_list":["post-201396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analysis","tag-biden","tag-putin","tag-russia","tag-ukraine","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}