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It seems everyone involved n the Russo-Ukraine war is eager to mark the first anniversary of the start of the send offensive (the first, of course was the less well remembered invasion of Crimea in 2014) in Russia's territorial adventurism.
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"Wang Yi announced that the Chinese side will put forth "China's position on the political settlement of the Ukraine crisis" and continue to stay firm on the side of peace and dialogue. Wang Yi said China will be launching a Global Security Initiative Concept Paper to lay out more practical measures to address current security challenges." (Wang Yi Attends the 59th Munich Security Conference and Delivers a Keynote Speech)
That Chinese plan is likely to offer something like a Mongolian solution--formal operatic declarations of the sovereign dignity of Ukraine beneath which a structure for the essential stripping of its national authority to act without the concession of its imperial monitors will be created. In the blander language likely to be used--the construction of a system in which Ukraine will become a neutral zone, Russia can keep its cool water ports in Crimea, and Ukraine will be forbidden from joining Europe. It will be designed as a transition state, though one which makes no sense geographically (considering the way that, to use a more ancient trope, the Baltic states already constitute a knife pointed at the heart of the Russian state). But the Europeans will get what they most desperately want--a pretended return to something like the status quo ante. In realty, the concessions will prove the unmaking of such a dream--though not its temporary forms. In the meantime, China will aid its security panicked Russian dependency while the Americans support the Ukrainians ("Mr. Biden's visit to the region, which was to see him meet later in the
day with other European leaders in Poland, comes as the world prepares
to mark a full year since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his
full-scale invasion of Ukraine — and amid concerns first publicized over
the weekend by America's top diplomat that China may be on the brink of providing Russia with weapons to bolster its assault." CBS News)
The Russians, for their part, will mark the anniversary with renewed military offensives and more likely the strategically enhanced campaign of terror. They are still convinced that their tactics in Syria and Chechnya will also bear some fruit in Ukraine. There is not much new here other than perhaps a sense of greater urgency given the unavoidable condition of human existence--people are born, they live and then, at the appointed time, they die. In the meantime they adjust to their new role in the global order--dependent on China and regionally strong with their friendships in the Shia Islamic world and among old Soviet loving potential post-global third tier satellites in Latin America.
The Europeans have been engaged in a more intense campaign of hand wringing more about tensions within the European sub-camp than about what if anything the Europeans may be required by reasons other than principle, to react to the continuing offensives in Ukraine. Leadership has appeared (remarkably at least on the political level to have shifted from Mittel Europa to its East.
Poland has called for NATO to make postwar assurances of military backing to Ukraine. . . Former NATO secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen has already co-authored a formal proposal for Ukraine to benefit from an arrangement similar to the one the United States already has with Israel. While Israel - like Ukraine - is not a member of NATO, the United States provides large-scale political support including extended loan guarantees and the technology to keep a 'qualitative military edge' over rivals. (Poland Calls on NATO to Offer 'Security Guarantees')
Buried in that request is the concession that the powers that be continue to reject the embedding of Ukraine in Europe. It also suggests a more decisive role for the Chinese position which seeks to strip Ukraine effectively of its sovereignty and, with appropriate territorial concessions to turn it into a vast neutral zone in and through which Empires and their dependencies may freely play at whatever it is they play at. The Israeli card is interesting, though concessions to Russia, unspoken but anticipated but also strengthen the argument that what is good enough for the Russian dependency of China is also good enough for Israeli territorial concessions.
Not to be undone, the United States staged a quite remarkable--and perhaps successful--performance of power and support. Mr. Biden personally delivered the response of the Americans to requests for more aid in a person to person meeting with Mr. Zelenskiy, to be followed by a visit to Poland.
The trip to Ukraine and its message of support was a positive move, especially by those who continue to be troubled by (and opposed to) the form and pursuit of Russian adventurism in a sovereign state over which it has no claim. Given the timing--after the Munich Security Conference and before the anticipated Russian anniversary offensive--there was likely some strong value in the personal delivery of news of US support. Nonetheless, and sadly, there was a bit of bathos in the statement--no aircraft. And that is perhaps the most telling part of the performance. The Americans--as the vanguard of the alliance supporting Ukraine, continue to adhere to a position more or less crafted in the initial months of the start of the second offensive. They will trade Crimea for peace (the 2014 territorial conquest a mimicry of the 1939 agreements on Polish territorial adjustments between the German Reich and the Soviet apparatus); they will support defensive and limited territorial reconquest efforts in return for Russian and Ukrainian concessions (but see here for divisions in this view). They will play the Turkey EU admission card--dangling EU membership and NATO assurances in return for concessions and peace. But they have no intention of threatening the territorial integrity or the stability of what passes for the current political-administrative model in Russia. At the same time they will sideline the crisis in NATO with the proposed admission of new members in a continued effort to allow Turkey to leverage their strategic position on the Bosporus. They will tolerate the construction of an imperial aggregation the hub of which is seated in Beijing. They will do what they can to develop new modalities of engaging, for mutual profit, with whatever emerges from this adventure. And they will pray to whatever gods they still profess of belief in that this Prussian gambit (effectively managing the situation so that momentary peace and stability can be purchased with Ukrainian territorial and sovereign concessions) will create consequences that will not make things worse.As the world prepares to mark the one-year anniversary of Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, I am in Kyiv today to meet with President Zelenskyy and reaffirm our unwavering and unflagging commitment to Ukraine’s democracy, sovereignty, and territorial integrity.
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When Putin launched his invasion nearly one year ago, he thought Ukraine was weak and the West was divided. He thought he could outlast us. But he was dead wrong.
Today, in Kyiv, I am meeting with President Zelenskyy and his team for an extended discussion on our support for Ukraine. I will announce another delivery of critical equipment, including artillery ammunition, anti-armor systems, and air surveillance radars to help protect the Ukrainian people from aerial bombardments. And I will share that later this week, we will announce additional sanctions against elites and companies that are trying to evade or backfill Russia’s war machine. Over the last year, the United States has built a coalition of nations from the Atlantic to the Pacific to help defend Ukraine with unprecedented military, economic, and humanitarian support – and that support will endure.
I also look forward to traveling on to Poland to meet President Duda and the leaders of our Eastern Flank Allies, as well as deliver remarks on how the United States will continue to rally the world to support the people of Ukraine and the core values of human rights and dignity in the UN Charter that unite us worldwide. (Statement from President Joe Biden on Travel to Kyiv, Ukraine)
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| Pix Credit here as perhaps planted in the west by Russian information operatives |
"But the president has made American support for Ukraine the centerpiece of his argument for a revitalized alliance in Europe, and he had told advisers that he wanted to mark the first anniversary of the invasion as a way of reassuring allies that his administration remained committed." (Biden Visits Kyiv, Ukraine’s Embattled Capital, as Air-Raid Siren Sounds: President Biden took a nearly 10-hour train ride from the border of Poland to show his administration’s “unwavering support” a year into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine).
The Chinese Foreign Minister, then, might well then have exposed the elephant in the room of European security when, in the course of the Munich Security Conference he noted: "“We need to think calmly, especially our friends in Europe, about what efforts should be made to stop the warfare; what framework should there be to bring lasting peace to Europe; what role should Europe play to manifest its strategic autonomy,” said Wang, who will continue his Europe tour with a stop in Moscow." (China talks ‘peace,’ woos Europe and trashes Biden in Munich). A post 1945 domesticated Europe is unlikely to have much of a stomach for the construction of post-Global empire building on the sidelines of which they now appear to sit. The rest is stage management for the consumption of the masses--and the press organs through which mass opinion is curated (here).
Links and talking points from recent Reuters reporting follow:
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