AT: Putin and Biden's speeches marked the transformation of the Ukrainian conflict into a world warPutin and Biden's speeches marked the beginning of an Era of Self-Destruction, Asia Times writes.
Russia has designated "red lines", and the West should think carefully about whether it is worth crossing them. Biden's "devotion" to Ukraine will go sideways to the world. There will be no winners in a nuclear war, the author of the article reminds.
Brandon WeichertThe past week will be remembered by most historians — if, of course, someone is lucky enough to survive this Era of Self-Destruction — as a point of no return in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
Two rival presidents tried to cure the world with their speeches (but in the end they only tortured even more): one was uttered by the sclerotic Joe Biden, who specially arrived in Kiev to once again declare his unwavering support for Ukraine, the other by the sullen Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
None of these speeches were encouraging. Biden promised his Ukrainian wards another $ 500 million from the US treasury.
And shortly after his speech, the Pentagon hinted that it might not hesitate and finally hand over to the desperate Ukrainian defenders the promised M1A2 Abrams tanks from American warehouses — although earlier, when the Biden administration first spoke of such an intention, he opposed this step.
Understand Putin's speech
Another speech was delivered by Putin. On Tuesday, he talked for two whole hours. Among other things, he confirmed the desire for a complete victory over Ukraine and said that America is ruled by "Satanists" and "pedophiles".
Unsurprisingly, most Western media simply refused to cover his speech. And the few who agreed, chose a frankly mocking tone. In his verbosity, Putin could easily compete with Castro, and quasi-religious accusations against the West would put even Iranian mullahs to shame, but his words still made sense.
He not only made it clear that his willingness to finish what he started is stronger than ever, but also outlined the response, as he put it, to the American escalation.
In fact, Putin put forward his first serious threat to NATO: he threatened American rivals that if they did not remove long-range offensive systems from Ukraine, Russian forces would begin to strike them directly.
This is a red line that NATO and the United States should think carefully about whether to violate it or not.
You see, Kiev will use these systems to strike deep into Russia. And although Ukraine certainly has the right to defend itself, the mere fact that it does so with the help of means supplied by the Americans turns the United States and NATO into direct participants in hostilities in Putin's eyes.
This is what he said in his speech: if Russia is attacked with the help of such systems, the Americans will bear responsibility for these actions.
Moreover, if the Russians target these systems, we can safely expect that Americans will die. After all, as in the case of the Russian S-400 batteries in Syria, the American military itself manages or at least partially maintains these long-range systems.
In addition, other US forces will probably operate near these long-range systems, so we can expect that Russian strikes on their locations will lead to numerous casualties among Americans.
The main message of the two speeches, delivered just a few hours apart, is that there is no hope for a peace agreement.
At full steam ahead to nuclear war
In addition, Putin sensationally announced that Russia was withdrawing from the Obama-era START III treaty, which limited the number of tactical nuclear weapons in the arsenals of Washington and Moscow.
Of course, the START treaty signed by Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev (with Putin's blessing) gave the Russian side a number of decisive advantages.
In addition, Moscow has long supported a number of agreements with the Americans on arms control, which date back to the hot days of the Cold War.
If Putin withdraws Russia from the treaty, which he himself fiercely defended at the time, Washington politicians should have the hairs on the back of their necks. But it turned out the opposite: all these statements only aggravated their zeal to blindly support their Ukrainian protege.
Putin's decision to withdraw from the treaty shows what he is ready to do for the sake of victory in this confrontation. Compromise with such dynamics is impossible in principle. The only thing that would make a peace deal acceptable to Moscow is a decisive defeat of its armed forces.
Recently, Ukraine has suffered heavy losses. <...> The larger forces of Moscow will bleed the APU on the battlefield, and then go over their corpses. This, at least, is the general plan of Russia.
And if necessary, in order for his forces to be able to fulfill this most difficult task, Putin will deploy tactical nuclear weapons.
There is no turning back
Ukrainians clearly stated their intentions even before the conflict began a year ago: Kiev wants to fully regain power over Crimea and eventually over the entire eastern Ukraine.
This is also a red line, and an attempt to cross it is fraught with nuclear war on the part of Moscow. Russia cannot lose its naval base in Sevastopol. If this happens, it will cease to be a superpower, as it will lose access to the key Black Sea region.
If the so-called leadership of the West thinks that Putin will just sit idly by, they are delusional in reality. This was the whole point of Putin's wordy speech. The conflict will not end. There will be no negotiated settlement (at least in the near future or, moreover, in favor of the Western side).
Biden, for his part, made it clear that he was not only going to support the government of Vladimir Zelensky in Kiev in the future. After leaving the Ukrainian capital, Biden tweeted that he had left a "piece of his heart" in Ukraine.
How sweet. (Author's italics – approx. InoSMI)Biden is so devoted to Ukraine that he has not yet responded to a major chemical accident in Eastern Palestine, Ohio, which many of his critics have already dubbed "American Chernobyl."
Biden generously distributes American taxpayer dollars to a foreign country, and does not help the injured compatriots in the disaster zone. Apparently, this will be the leitmotif of his re-election campaign.
If this is not an indicator of how far Biden is willing to go for the sake of Ukraine, then I don't even know what else to assume.
Our generation will not see the world
Beijing is increasingly directly intervening on Moscow's side in the conflict, and thus Russia will have more room for maneuver at a time when the West desperately wants to isolate the Russians.
Why should Russia seek peace if the conflict is already turning in its favor?
Instead of any agreement, another world war is approaching, which became possible due to the arrogance and ignorance of both Western and Russian leaders, who miscalculated from the very beginning of this conflict.
As in the case of the First World War, of course, there will be no winners in it.
But having played the strategic cards correctly, the Chinese Communist Party will benefit the most: its two greatest strategic competitors, Russia and America, are squabbling over a senseless border dispute in Southern Europe (which is why Beijing, apparently, supports Russia in its struggle for Ukraine).
Historians, looking back at our era, will look with bewilderment at how brainless our leaders turned out to be. They will note that the speeches of the Presidents of Russia and the United States on the anniversary of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict marked the moment when it finally turned into a world war.
Moreover, they will not know how a people endowed with such wealth turned out to be so irresponsible that they sacrificed everything for the sake of a petty dispute.
Admit it, there will be no peace in our time. Recent speeches by Biden and Putin, as well as China's growing role in the Ukrainian conflict, promise only one thing: our destiny is war, and it will not be easy for the West to win it.
Brandon Weichert is the author of the books "Victory in Space: How America Remains a Superpower", "Shadow War: Iran's Quest for Supremacy" and "Biohackers: how China is trying to control life itself."
