Xi doesn’t see Russia as an equal partner but as a valuable pawn to realize his vision for China — to replace the United States as the sole superpower in a Sino-centered and autocracy-friendly new world order. An economically weak but militarily aggressive Russia suits Xi’s vision.

Xi deploys China’s economic power to support Putin, counting on the Russian military to keep the West, primarily the United States, occupied and to draw attention away from Beijing’s geopolitical expansion. Meanwhile, the more Russia is economically isolated from the western world due to sanctions and becomes more economically dependent on China, the less likely Putin’s Russia will present a threat to challenge China’s dominance.

Shockingly, the Biden administration has failed to recognize China’s strategic calculations so far. The New York Times reports that Biden administration officials shared intelligence on Russia’s troop buildup with China, hoping Beijing would help avert Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Chinese officials rebuffed the United States and apparently shared the information with Moscow.

The Biden administration’s weakness and incompetence were on full display in a New York Times article last week recounting the White House’s repeated—and failed— attempts to urge China to help avert war in Ukraine. The purpose of the article was to allow senior administration officials to take their duplicitous Chinese counterparts to task, but the account reveals above all that White House officials are out of their depth in dealing with China.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/25/us/politics/us-china-russia-ukraine.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes

It is nearly impossible to read the Biden administration’s side of the story without perceiving the weakness, gullibility, and ineffectiveness that the Biden White House unwittingly presents. Administration officials describe how they were “repeatedly rebuffed” by Chinese officials even as the Americans scrambled for “half a dozen urgent meetings over three months” to try to avert the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The article repeats how “Each time, the Chinese officials… rebuffed the Americans,” as if to drive home the humiliating point. //

Biden officials disclosed to The New York Times that they shared intelligence with their Chinese counterparts only to be double-crossed when the Chinese quickly leaked that intel to the Russians.

To add insult to injury, the Chinese also told the Russians that the Americans were “trying to sow discord,” and promised Moscow that Beijing would not interfere with Russia’s war plans. The Biden officials who leaked these details must not be aware of how embarrassing they are. //
When China was weaker and threatened by what was then the Soviet Union, it turned toward America. After decades of aid, investment, technology transfer, education, and lucrative trade with the United States, China is now much stronger than Russia. Its population is much larger, its gross domestic product is ten times bigger, and its technologies (many stolen from the United States) are better. China has much less to fear from Russia, and thus can leverage Russia against America—the only remaining superpower stronger than China.

One way to pit Russia against America is to give tacit support for a Russian war in eastern Europe that will consume America and her allies, while letting China see how the West responds to an invasion analogous to what China has planned for Taiwan. And that’s exactly what China did. //

Russia might even be reduced to a client state to supply commodities to China. That wouldn’t be a bad turn of events by the Chinese against a country that used to threaten them.

In 2017, congressional investigators found that a money trail linked Russia to millions of dollars funding U.S. nonprofits to work against U.S. shale gas in order to influence the U.S. energy market. Specifically, investigators found that NRDC, Sierra Club, and Climate Action Network were all found to have received millions of dollars of funding in grants from a shady San Francisco-based company called “Sea Change” that a money trail linked back to the Russians. Indeed, it is an open secret that Russians have funded anti-fracking and anti-natural gas propaganda in America for decades, as environmental groups funded the campaigns of Democrats and pressured them to ban fossil fuels.

These same environmental groups relentlessly attacked President Trump and his appointees (I was one) as “anti-science,” “enemies of the EPA,” and “climate change deniers,” pulling out all the stops to frame President Trump’s pro-American energy agenda as harmful to the environment. President Trump knew then what we are all seeing now: Energy independence is crucial to our security, and we don’t have to shut down industry with duplicative and costly regulations to protect our environment.

After spending millions to elect Biden, the environmental left got its wish: Biden canceled America’s Keystone XL pipeline, blocking the safe transport of oil from one of our closest allies and killing thousands of jobs. At the same time, Biden removed President Trump’s sanctions on the Russian NordStream2 pipeline, giving Putin the green light to move forward.

Biden canceled oil and gas leasing on 2.46 billion acres of federal on and off-shore lands, effectively crushing American energy supplies. He unleashed his federal regulators at the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Energy, and more to hamper energy exploration, production, and transportation with new regulations. Finally, as the Russian invasion of Ukraine was imminent, Biden’s regulators at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission took one more step to embolden Russian oil by clamping down on pipeline permits and LNG-export terminals, which could have helped supply American gas to the rest of the world.

https://legacy-assets.eenews.net/open_files/assets/2017/07/07/document_pm_02.pdf //

very few of Biden’s punitive moves against American energy would actually help the environment. Numerous studies have shown that pipelines have no material impact on greenhouse gas emissions since crude oil would still be extracted, and shipping it by rail or tanker instead of pipeline results in up to 42 percent higher emissions and more leaks.

Furthermore, American natural gas is far cleaner than Russian gas. A major 2019 study by the U.S. National Energy Technology Laboratory found that Russian gas piped to Europe has up to 22 percent more greenhouse gas emissions than European coal. U.S. liquified natural gas (LNG) delivered to the EU, in contrast, has up to 56 percent fewer total emissions than EU coal, the report shows.

The most-watched aircraft on the flight tracking App Flightradar 24 are a Global Hawk unmanned spy plane and USAF KC135 and KC10 tankers.

The unmanned Global Hawk has been flying over the Black Sea just south of Russia’s naval base at Sevastopol while the KC135 (Boeing 707s) and KC10 (DC-10) tankers have been stationed over Romania and Poland.

Over 58,000 people are watching the activities of the Global Hawk which has a call sign of “Forte12” or “Forte11”.

The $170 million aircraft is piloted remotely and operates from Italy.

It has an endurance of about 32 hours and can fly over 22,000km at an altitude of 18,000m.

Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine this week will have devastating consequences for the people on the ground. Although the terrestrial implications of this war are far greater than those for spaceflight, there will nonetheless be ripple effects felt by space programs around the world. //

The most prominent space issue concerns the fate of the International Space Station, which is operated by 15 nations but led by the United States and Russia. The countries rely on one another: Russia provides fuel and thruster capability to periodically re-boost the space station to a higher altitude, and NASA gyroscopes provide stability, and its solar panels generate the vast majority of electricity. At present, the station cannot operate without the consent of both partners.

After Biden's comments on Thursday, the head of Russia's main space corporation, Dmitry Rogozin, lashed out in a series of tweets in which he characterized Biden's actions as "Alzheimer's Sanctions." //

All of this translates into fewer resources pouring into the Russian space program and a further diminution of its activities. Without investment, the country is unlikely to be able to afford any semblance of deep-space activities or the creation of its own space station as a follow-on to the International Space Station.

This very likely will push Russia to cooperate further with China, where it has already initiated discussions about joining the Chinese lunar exploration program. But this Chinese lifeline will almost certainly come with costs. China will be interested in partnering with Russia to promote the idea that it is leading an international exploration program—but Russia should have no illusions about who will be driving the bus and who will be along for the ride.

According to some captured 11th Guards Air Assault Brigade, they were not told they would be attacking Ukraine. They believed that they were on a training mission in Crimea but were dropped in Ukraine. Now, that seems hard to believe, and maybe that’s a cover story. But, if that were true, that you had Putin hoodwinking his military to get them there, that’s not exactly the best cover story either. That makes it sound like they may not have everyone on board with what’s going on — versus the Ukrainians, who are very willing to defend their country.

In this post we will compile all information on impacts of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on civil aviation around the world. Check back for continuing updates as developments occur.

Matthew Dowd @matthewjdowd
If you are blaming Biden today for what Putin is doing in Ukraine please take down the American flag from your home or social media account and replace it with the Russian flag. It will help us all know where you clearly stand.
8:54 AM · Feb 22, 2022 //

Garrett M. Graff @vermontgmg
One thing worth keeping in my mind today: There’s a straight line from Russia’s attack on the US election in 2016 to 1/6 to today’s new invasion of Ukraine. The chaos that Russia unleashed with the election of Trump weakened us to the point Putin feels confident invading Europe.
7:05 AM · Feb 24, 2022 //

John Harwood @JohnJHarwood
another way of stating Garrett's point:

the Russian thug now attacking Ukraine helped Donald Trump become president because he thought that would some day make this kind of attack easier to pull off

he was right in the short term

longer term, TBD //

Europe was never going to be enough to deter Russian movement into Ukraine. It was always going to come down to whether or not the U.S. would be tough enough to deter it a bit longer. Afghanistan showed that we are not, and so Putin began speeding up his plans.

That’s not to say that Russia is doing this because of anything happening in Washington. It’s simply to say that the last barrier to doing it was the U.S. and Biden completely tore down that barrier himself.

So, no, Russia didn’t get Trump elected, much less as part of a plan to take over Ukraine. And, no, Trump isn’t responsible for what’s happening now. Weak leadership in the U.S. at this very moment gave Putin all the confidence he needed.

Today has been the proof of the pudding for the geopolitical strategy developed by Anthony Blinken under the guidance of our very own Metternich and Machiavelli, that would be Joey SoftServe and Kamala Harris. Unfortunately, the results have not been encouraging. About four hours ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin gave a speech that recognized the autonomy of Donetsk and Luhansk, two major Russian-speaking areas in Eastern Ukraine. He also expounded upon the theory of perpetual Russian victimhood in a way that would have had CRT guru Ibrahim X. Kendi running for his notepad. //

Shortly after the speech, Putin ordered Russian peacekeepers into Eastern Ukraine. //

keep in mind that the root cause of this crisis is the decision made during the George W. Bush administration to not only expand NATO to nations like Hungary and Poland, but also to former Soviet states like Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. That decision was made on the assumption that Russia was a spent geopolitical force, an assumption that, in retrospect, seems ill-advised.

How this plays out now is anyone’s guess. The White House has already ruled out sanctions on Russia for recognizing the autonomy of Donetsk and Luhansk and the peacekeepers seem to fall within the “minor incursion” parameters that Joe Biden established in January. I don’t know what level of risk the Ukrainians are willing to take by accidentally, or not, killing Russian troops. I’d just note that under the UN “peacekeeping” definition, both sides have to agree to a ceasefire before deployment. That hasn’t happened in this case which leads one to believe that the primary purpose of the Russian troops is to get some of them killed. So we haven’t seen the last of this melodrama.

In a unique action of political courage and foresight, on January 13, the Senate entertained a bill to impose sanctions on the Russian Nord Stream 2 project to send a message to Putin that his adventurism would not be tolerated. Egged on by the White House, Senate Democrats killed the bill. No other attempt to sanction Russia has been introduced by Chuck Schumer or any Democrat.

On January 19, Biden publicly signaled that his junta would be okay with some Russian movement into Ukrainian territory. //

What we have just experienced was one of two things. Either Putin punked Joe Biden and left all the world to gape in amazement at the ease and audacity of the act, or he worked hand-in-glove with Biden and Anthony Blinken to carve up Ukraine at virtually no cost to Putin–sort of reminiscent of how Poland was dismembered in 1939. Either way, US credibility suffered the same damage and Putin was able to show that Joe Biden is just not up to the task of responding to challenges. What happens over the next few years will be ugly.

Curtis Houck @CurtisHouck
This is just an almost comically false statement by Putin:

"Despite the known problems, Russia has always cooperated and worked with Ukraine in an open and honest manner, with respect to its interests."

He adds Ukraine blackmailed them.

Lol okay.

2:13 PM · Feb 21, 2022 //

Putin’s “history lesson” on Russian territorial claims and the Soviet Union is obviously not an accident. He is clearly is laying the groundwork not just to take Ukraine, but to rebuild large swaths of the former USSR under his rule. That’s not exactly a new goal for Putin, as the former KGB agent has long spoken lovingly of the Soviet Union, blaming its downfall for Russia’s current malaise.

Perhaps the most important development from Putin’s speech came towards the end, though. The Russian leader recognized the “sovereignty” of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Eastern Ukraine. //

It’s not hard to game out what happens next. With those areas now being “independent” states as far as Russia is concerned, the separatist leadership there can now invite Russian military forces to enter. In other words, Putin has just taken a chunk of Ukraine without firing a shot. If Ukraine or NATO try to prevent the entry of Russian forces into those areas, it’ll set off a hot war that can be blamed on Western “aggression.”

It’s actually a very cunning move, and it shows just how idiotic Joe Biden’s strategy has been in dealing with this situation. While the administration has been focused on using the threat of sanctions as a deterrent, Putin was busy going in the backdoor, getting what he wants without triggering the repercussions set up by the Western nations. Further, Biden also lifted sanctions on the Nordstream 2 pipeline, giving Putin enormous leverage over Europe, while receiving nothing in return. //

Let’s recall that Sen. Ted Cruz tried to get a sanctions bill targeting Russia passed back in December. He would have had the votes, too, if not for a vigorous lobbying effort by the White House on behalf of Putin. Perhaps those sanctions would have caused enough financial hardship to change the situation? We’ll never know for sure, but what we do know is that the defeat of that bill was the green light for Putin to start amassing his invasion force.

Ali Rogin @AliRogin
NEW: In a conference call with reporters on responding to Putin, and what comes next, a senior admin official suggested that Russian troops in Donetsk/Luhansk alone may not warrant the "swift and severe" sanctions the admin has been previewing.
5:47 PM · Feb 21, 2022 //

Exactly why should Putin care about Biden’s piddly sanctions? He doesn’t. He wouldn’t care unless you make him personally hurt. But that should have been done long ago. The sanctions on Nord Stream 2 should never have been waived. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know that Putin would be making more moves on Ukraine. He’s made moves against the other republics now for years since the Soviet Union broke apart.

Ted Cruz @tedcruz
Joe Biden becoming president is the best thing to happen to Vladimir Putin.
10:05 AM · Feb 20, 2022

“No, it hasn’t worked at all. If you look at what the Ukrainians want, they’ve been very explicit,” Cruz said. “They’ve asked the United States explicitly, ‘Put sanctions on Nord Stream 2, right now, today.’ Joe Biden could do that this morning. He refuses to do it. And they said, number two, provide lethal military aid, give us the weapons to defend ourselves.”

Cruz explained that Joe Biden personally lobbied against the bill to put sanctions on Nord Stream 2. As we noted at the time, not only did they do that but they used the filibuster rule to defeat the bill, requiring 60 votes. Not only were they helping Putin but they were being hypocritical once again on the question of the filibuster. The Democrats had previously been for the sanctions and then they flipped because of who was in the White House and the lobbying from Biden. Cruz skewered their flip-flopping.

Watching the Biden Administration do foreign policy, particularly in the middle of a crisis, is like watching a slow train wreck. You know they’re going to hit that car that’s lying up ahead in the tracks, but they just keep speeding headlong into it. //

Zelensky notes – quite accurately – that the United States made certain commitments to Ukraine for giving up their nuclear weapons years ago as part of the Budapest Memorandum. Under that agreement, the U.S. said that they would help back Ukraine. Because of that commitment from us, Ukraine gave up their weapons which could have helped them now.

Guess who was a big part of that denuding of Ukraine’s defense? Barack Obama, when he was a junior senator from Illinois. We paid a lot of money to help them get rid of conventional weapons that they could have used when Russia invade Crimea in 2014. Obama then was, of course, basically missing in action, leaving Ukraine twisting in the wind, despite his part in helping leave them defenseless. //

Tommy Pigott @TommyPigott
The last two times Russia has escalated in regards to Ukraine, Joe Biden has been in the White House

RNC Research @RNCResearch
Secretary of State Antony Blinken on why Vladimir Putin did not escalate during the Trump administration: "Ask him"
Embedded video
10:05 AM · Feb 20, 2022

It’s portrayed with urgency and alarm by the Biden administration. But do the facts support the assertion?

Around 100,000 Russian troops have been on the Ukrainian border since April 2021. A report in September 2021 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) noted their arrival as the “Spring Scare of 2021.” At the time, the US think tank community raised concerns that Russia was preparing to annex Ukraine much the same way Putin’s government annexed Crimea after the Russian puppet government of Viktor Yanukovych was ousted in 2014. //

The objective question one must ask then is, given that these troops have now been on the border for almost a year and the separatist war seems to be a steady as she goes scenario, is this really a new level of provocation by Russia?

Or is it the United States’ infamous attention deficit disorder in foreign policy waking up and looking for a new shiny obsession after totally blowing it so badly in Afghanistan?

Europe’s aggressive leap towards ‘green’ energy is proving to be a grave mistake, making it reliant on aggressive foreign neighbors. //

Gas, coal, and nuclear are needed to offer instantaneous energy when unreliable renewables, which also pollute, fail to meet the job. Europe’s energy needs have complicated negotiations with Russia as Putin appears ready to deploy troops into Ukraine in the face of a divided opposition.

How many Americans know that we are importing a lot of oil from Russia? Not only did Biden beg OPEC to produce more oil, he doubled the amount of oil imported from Saudi Arabia from December of 2020 and October of 2021 and we’ve also tripled the oil from Russia from what we were importing from February 2019 to September 2021.

In May of last year, Biden surged the Russian oil imports by 23 percent to 844,000 barrels a day from the prior month, which was almost 10 percent of all our oil imports for the month. The only country we import more oil from is Canada. Exactly why are we importing and dependant on such an adversary?

MacCallum pressed Sullivan, asking if he does concede we are no longer energy independent, “and we were before.” His answer is very revealing.

“What I would say is that the U.S. is investing massively in being a leader in an energy transition in which – yes, for now we continue to use fossil fuels – but over the course of years and decades, we become a clean energy superpower.” He claimed that’s where the “strategic advantage” would lie.

Just to summarize that: he’s admitting they’re killing our energy position on purpose. That’s what he just said, because of their insane “clean energy” goals. That’s all just cool to them, if we help Russia now, as Russia menaces us and their neighbors. //

MacCallum had the best response. “Some people would look at that answer and say that Russia and China could feel like they were in a “pretty good position,” MacCallum said.

Exactly. Russia and China are probably looking at all this and laughing that we could put these horrible folks that help them in office. And the Democrats called President Donald Trump a Putin stooge, when he was dropping bombs on Russians’ heads and making us more energy independent. These actions make no sense, unless you are insane and/or are trying to help Vladimir Putin. They hurt our ability to defend ourselves and our allies. They hurt every American.

I would counsel US leadership to engage with oil-producing countries to explore ways to bring down spot prices and reduce dependency on Russian supplies to develop an economic wedge to signal Putin that, with or without sanctions, his free money to play monopoly next to Ukraine will disappear.

It remains to be seen if the Biden administration is pragmatic enough to shed the bondage of “woke” progressivism and climate change politics, even for a little while, in order to create an effective asymmetric threat to Putin’s financial ability to threaten Ukraine. //

Regardless, the real question is would either the US or Russia welcome a brokered “crab walk” strategy to the power play negotiations at hand. The consensus of the Atlantic Council panelists was no. I agree. The US and Russia both like engaging in direct loggerhead positional bargaining too much.

The Sound of Inevitability

However, the standoff won’t last forever. The oil market will change to one that isn’t so rich at some point. It’ll happen whether the US uses price manipulation as an asymmetric weapon or not.

While Vindman may achieve an early victory in this case, first with the positive PR he is garnering and second by fending off any attempt by the defendants to have the case immediately tossed as frivolous, he may soon regret his decision to sue.

Unlike the House proceedings in which Schiff and other defendants ran cover for Vindman, allowing him to refuse to respond to relevant questions, federal discovery will not be so limited. And there will be much the defendants will want to know, such as with whom Vindman discussed the telephone call.

The defendants will also be entitled to question under oath a variety of other witnesses, including the whistleblower. Questions of Vindman’s bias will be fair game as well. Then there will be evidence the defendants will seek to gather to establish Trump had legitimate concerns about Hunter Biden’s involvement with the corrupt Ukrainian company Burisma.

In short, Vindman might just give Trump the impeachment trial he needed, with the witnesses he needed, to establish Vindman worked with the whistleblower and the whistleblower with Schiff to launch the Ukraine hoax.

There are some frank things that need to be said about the situation in Ukraine.

First, the Russians need to recognize that there is no military threat to their sovereignty. It’s a myth. Acknowledging this is the first step in the direction of the next wave of demobilization after World War II. That one-third of Russia’s expensive military machine is about as useful for the future as the Soviet military that hung on well after the Great Patriotic War was done. The bottom line remains that, “Analysis: Putin’s Dangerous Ukraine Brinksmanship Fantasy Needs to Stop”.

Second, both Europe and Russia need to recognize that economic opportunity is an asymmetric force to be dealt with that is more powerful than any army. In this regard, it is in the interest of Russia and the EU to see Ukraine not as a battleground of stubborn wills, but as an opportunity to testbed the integration of longstanding interests into something that will work across Eurasia.

In this regard, there is a case to be made for both sides to discuss a period of tension reduction experimentation with Ukraine being a positive beneficiary of process. The objective is to fill the donut hole of this hour with sweet filling instead of bitterness and anti-tank missiles. When spring comes, the land turns to wet bog, the troops on exercise return to their bases, and calmer heads have had time to assess what comes next, that’s when something productive can happen.

In the meantime, it’s okay to let the reflexive actions of the set-piece battles generals and politicians work themselves into a frenzy that ends with creating an outcome of “all quiet on the front.”

Third, Americans, not just government but ordinary people too, need to search our souls and ask: do we really want to be the ones that get blamed for turning Europe into a Forward Line of Troops (FLOT) that will have to give way to something where we are not needed, or wanted … again?

We Americans, and our bureaucrats, like the excitement of the moment. But, that may not actually be constructive to the long game.