Biden, Putin give diplomacy another chance as tension over Ukraine rises

Biden, Putin give diplomacy another chance as tension over Ukraine rises

The US president and his Russian counterpart have already met several times by phone and saw each other in June in Geneva, a meeting that the Biden administration judged positive in its process of creating a “stable” and predictable relationship. “

This time, however, the meeting takes place in a very volatile context, in the form of a videoconference at 10:00 in Washington (12:00 Argentine time).

The United States and Ukraine accuse Russia of deploying troops on the border with Kiev to attack the country, repeating the scenario that occurred in 2014 when the Russians annexed the peninsula of Crimea. Since then, more than 13,000 people have died in the conflict that broke out.

Experts are divided: Many think Putin is exaggerating, but few totally rule out the hypothesis of an attack.

If Moscow goes to the act, a senior White House official said Monday that the United States was ready to act.

Washington would establish tough economic sanctions against the Putin government, but different from those it imposed since 2014 against Russia, which have no effect.

Biden, who has called the Russian president a “murderer”, is in a complex situation. It must handle the Ukrainian crisis tactfully, if it does not want to draw criticism from its traditional allies., already outraged after the withdrawal from Afghanistan, completely chaotic and without consultation between them.

The US president will personally communicate to his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodimir zelenski, the result of the meeting with Putin. And on Monday, he spoke “with key European allies” such as Germany, France and Britain to “coordinate the message” and “strong transnational solidarity.”

The question is whether this deterrence strategy will pay off with Putin, always concerned about his international stature.

“It is difficult to expect progress in these negotiations,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov., stating that bilateral relations are unlikely to be fixed “in a few hours” of talks.

Moscow wants a guarantee that Ukraine will not join the OTAN, as so many countries of the former Soviet bloc have done.

Neither Kiev nor Washington is committing to this, although Ukraine’s accession process to the Western military alliance, officially open, seems frozen.

Some experts believe that the very holding of this summit is in itself a victory for Putin, who wants to affirm Russia as a power in the global geopolitical game, currently dominated by the rivalry between China and the United States.

There is also speculation about the possibility that Washington will leave Russia out of the bank identification system. SWIFT, a key cog in global finance that enables banks to transfer money.

Source From: Ambito

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Latest Posts