As peril grows in Ukraine, Biden and Putin offer a split-screen dissonance
The split-screen dissonance in Tuesday’s speeches by President Biden and Vladimir Putin, delivered hours apart, was the latest signal that the deepening East-west conflict, triggered by the Russian dictator’s war in Ukraine, is at its most dangerous juncture in decades. Biden’s address in Warsaw, a day after he made a stirring surprise visit to Kyiv, was a tough-minded pledge to stick by Ukraine despite the peril. Putin’s speech twisted the reality of his unwarranted imperial aggression against a smaller neighbor into a self-righteous litany of lies claiming Russia was the aggrieved victim of a predatory West.
Beyond those two screens, however, there was a third, less widely seen, that cast a clear light on the truth of Moscow’s assault and its effects on real people in real time. Images from the Ukrainian port city of Kherson showed the bloody aftermath of a Russian rocket attack Tuesday at a crowded bus station that left at least six people dead and scores more hurt: buildings blasted, bodies torn, lives ruined. Notwithstanding Putin’s propaganda, the world knows which side is prosecuting a war that has left hundreds of thousands of casualties in the past year, and could end it, immediately, if the tyrant in the Kremlin elected to do so.
Instead, by announcing that Moscow would suspend its participation in the most important, and last, remaining treaty regulating the nuclear arsenals of the United States and Russia, Putin dealt another sledgehammer blow to global security and stability. In combination with his threats to use tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield in Ukraine, the suspension of the New START accord, signed by the two countries in 2010, means that arms control between the two superpowers, a project hammered out over decades, might now be another casualty of Putin’s contempt for civilized conduct among nations.
An equal cause for concern is the prospect that China, which seeks to join the United States and Russia in a three-way arms race within the decade, is considering whether to abandon its posture of mainly rhetorical support for Putin’s war and begin arming Russian forces. On Saturday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that Beijing is considering such a move, which would intensify already heightened tensions with Washington. China said Tuesday it is worried the war in Ukraine could spiral “out of control.” In fact, it is difficult to imagine developments that would accelerate that spiral more dramatically than a decision by China to send arms to Russian forces. Moreover, doing so would also be an act of self-defeating folly on the part of Chinese President Xi Jinping, likely prompting an economic rift with the United States and its NATO partners, which together accounted for more than one-quarter of China’s exports in 2021.
The war in Ukraine and Russia’s intensifying strategic threat are the defining challenges of Biden’s presidency. He has so far risen to the occasion, galvanizing the Western alliance, rallying public opinion and projecting strength and resolve - even while calibrating U.S. weapons supplies to Ukraine in what increasingly seems a vain effort to deprive Putin of pretexts for further escalation.
Biden’s speeches in Kyiv and Warsaw were forthright and inspirational - especially for Ukrainians and Poles. By making an appearance in Kyiv, in a somewhat risky visit to a city that is the target of episodic missile attacks, the president added symbolic weight to his repeated vow to stand by Ukraine in its fight for survival.
Make no mistake: The United States and its closest allies are effectively at war with Russia in Ukraine. It is not a war the West sought and, thank goodness, it remains an indirect conflict. Biden and other key Western leaders are right to want to keep it that way.
But even without troops incountry, Washington, London, Berlin, Paris and the other NATO partners are fully invested in what has become a dire struggle against Putin’s autocratic regime and predatory worldview, and for the most basic values that define the West. That is why Biden was right to reaffirm the civilized world’s commitment to fight an unjust war. In Kyiv as in Warsaw, he pledged U.S. support for Ukraine’s right to sovereignty, to live free from aggression and to strive for democracy. That is the right message, at the right time. His mission is to deliver on his promise, and to ensure that Putin’s imperial war of aggression is thwarted.