cmv: Biden bears some responsibility for the invasion of Ukraine
Prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Russian military sat outside Ukraines borders for months in a threatening position. However, this wasn’t a long preparation to invade; as the actual invasion was decided just two weeks prior and was hastily planned with minimal supplies being brought up. The reason Russia waited was because Putin wanted to get concessions from the United States on Ukraine; namely forever declaring that Ukraine would not become part of NATO. Seeing this, Biden had two options to prevent the war:
1: appease Russia and negotiate with their their demands on Ukrainian neutrality. This could have lowered tensions, although it probably would have failed and Russia invaded anyway
- Promise to defend Ukraine. This would have caused a diplomatic crisis, but would 100% have prevented conflict. At the height of their power the USSR never marched into West Berlin, no chance modern Russia would.
Biden decides to do neither; he refuses point blank to negotiate with Putin on anything, and basically tells him to get bent. But at the same time, he says over and over that the US will not get involved if Russia actually does attack Ukraine. So obviously, since the US is refusing to negotiate, but also refuses to actually defend Ukraine, Putin decides to invade.
This was arguably Biden’s biggest failure, and why I think trump has a point when he says Ukraine wouldn’t have happened under him. Trump would have at least sat down with Putin, and there was no way Russia risks nuclear war with such an unpredictable crazy in the White House. I sometimes wonder if this was done on purpose, as Russia failing so badly in their war greatly benefited NATO and weakened their main rival, but at the cost of the Ukrainian people. This whole thing is still Putin’s fault yes, and is certainly not Zelensky’s, but Biden should not be praised for his handling of this fiasco.