Putin claims troop drawback, seeks negotiations
What happened
Russian President Vladimir Putin said this week he was pulling back some troops from the Ukrainian border and is open to a “diplomatic path” out of the crisis, easing fears of an imminent invasion. But President Biden cautioned that Putin’s claims of a drawback were unverified, and said an invasion “remains very much a possibility.” Many Western nations evacuated their embassies over the past week, and national security adviser Jake Sullivan warned Sunday that “a major military action” could begin “at any time.” But cracks appeared early in the week, as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Putin in a televised appearance that diplomatic options were “far from exhausted,” and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky floated the possibility that Ukraine will abandon its “dream” of joining NATO—a key Russian demand. After meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Putin said he was “ready to continue on the negotiating track.”
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg called Moscow’s diplomatic overtures “grounds for cautious optimism.” In an address, Biden vowed to give “diplomacy every chance to succeed.” But he warned that more than 150,000 troops remained “in a threatening position,” and reiterated his vow that an invasion will be met with crippling banking and technology sanctions. If there’s an attack, he said, “the world will not forget that Russia chose needless death and destruction.”
What the editorials said
Whether Putin stands down “or orders a bloody military assault,” the Ukraine crisis has driven home a valuable lesson, said The Washington Post: “Democracy’s survival is intertwined with geopolitics.” Allowing “a forcible anti-democratic takeover” of Ukraine would open the door for “the intimidation or takeover” of other nations—which is definitely not in the interests of the U.S. and other Western democracies. The answer to authoritarian aggression is “alliance cohesion”— exactly what “the Biden administration has achieved” by wrangling NATO countries into a unified show of support for Ukraine.
Putin’s hostilities underline a “new world disorder,” said The Wall Street Journal. From China to Russia to Iran, “the world’s rogues” are on the march, spreading “aggression and disorder” that “threatens American freedom and prosperity.” At this time of grave peril, Biden “must meet the moment,” explain to an American public wearied by Iraq and Afghanistan the dangers of isolationism, and shift his focus “from expanding the domestic welfare state to improving national security.” He must “substantially” raise his defense budget requests and seek alliances with “GOP hawks” who understand “the dangers ahead.”
What the columnists said
“Nobody knows for sure” why Putin appeared to put on the brakes, said David Leonhardt in The New York Times. One possibility is that he’s been bluffing all along—a view held by many leaders in Ukraine and Europe. Another is that the show of Western unity and resistance among Ukraine’s citizenry made him back down. Give Biden credit, said Thomas Friedman, also in the Times. His “statecraft has given Putin pause.” The arms transfers to Ukraine, the movement of troops to Eastern Europe, and threats of painful new sanctions may have the Russian autocrat wondering: If the invasion goes badly, “wrecking Russia’s economy and resulting in Russian soldiers returning home in body bags, could it lead to my own downfall?”
It’s possible Putin will still invade, but he might be looking for a “face-saving way out of this confrontation,” said Fred Kaplan in Slate. He wants a guarantee that Ukraine will never join NATO, and was probably pleased to hear Zelensky say that NATO membership may not be feasible. And if Putin’s goal was to strengthen his hold over Ukraine and divide the West, he badly miscalculated. Instead, his aggressions have “sparked a rise in Ukrainian nationalism” and unified NATO “more than any event since the end of the Cold War.”
As the West ponders Putin’s next move, said Yaroslav Trofimov in The Wall Street Journal, it’s clear that the danger to Ukraine “will remain no matter what.” Putin sees a thriving, democratic Ukraine as a direct threat to his autocratic rule, so he will continue to seek its destabilization by preserving the possibility of invasion. “So far [the Russians] have failed,” said Oleksii Danilov, the head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council. But “this doesn’t mean they won’t try again tomorrow or the day after.”