can increase its military support to Ukraine, which could make a potential invasion look bloodier and more costly for Russia. military response seems doubtful, given a weariness of foreign wars that Biden and many American voters share.īut Biden still has options. On its own, Ukraine’s military seems outmatched by Russia’s. More likely than a treaty is a continued mix of confrontation and diplomacy. But Putin’s demands - including a pledge that NATO would stop military cooperation with Ukraine - are probably too big for Biden to meet. “He wants a Cold War-style treaty,” Anton Troianovski, The Times’s Moscow bureau chief, says. Putin has rejected multilateral diplomacy on Ukraine, insisting on one-on-one conversations with the U.S.
and Western Europe into backing away from Ukraine. Įven if Russian troops don’t invade, Putin could gain from the confrontation, by intimidating the U.S. “Putin sees that the next generation may care less, so he has decided that he must create facts for them,” one Russian policy insider. Not all members of Russia’s political establishment share Putin’s obsession with the country, or his passionate view that the Ukrainians and Russians are the same people. Kadri Liik of the European Council on Foreign Relations writes: Putin may also fear that his sway over Ukraine is weakening, both because of Zelensky’s resistance within Ukraine and because of Russian politics. Last year, opposition groups held some of the largest anti-Putin marches in years.
And Russia has domestic problems, like surging Covid-19 cases, slow-growing wages and rising prices. Why now?įoreign aggression often gives political leaders a chance to rally nationalistic support at home, especially as a distraction from domestic problems. Russia already annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in a 2014 military operation, although much of the world does not acknowledge it as Russian territory. Russia’s amassing of troops along Ukraine’s border is a signal that Putin will consider an invasion unless Ukraine backs away from the West. and NATO military outpost,” my colleague Michael Crowley, who covers the State Department, says. “Putin sees Ukraine developing into a de facto U.S. The two countries share a 1,200-mile border as well as cultural and linguistic ties (which many Ukrainians think Putin exaggerates). Putin believes that Ukraine - a country of 44 million people that was previously part of the Soviet Union - should be subservient to Russia. Russia recently moved troops toward the Ukrainian border, creating fears of an invasion. President Biden and President Vladimir Putin of Russia spent two hours in a tense video call yesterday, focused largely on Ukraine. But their increasing aggression is a sign of their willingness to defy what their leaders see as a weakened U.S. The two authoritarian powers - Russia and China - may ultimately choose to stand down, at least temporarily. has issued stern warnings against any such action. In each, an authoritarian power is making noises about invading a small nearby democracy, and the U.S. This background helps explain the tensions in both Ukraine and Taiwan. Given all of this, you might not be feeling especially intimidated by the U.S., even though it continues to have the world’s largest economy, most important currency and strongest military.
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