One of the most important, two-hour telephone calls of the post-Cold War took place on Friday, March 18, 2022. U.S. President Joseph Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping met to discuss the crisis in Ukraine. The discussion laid out the US and Chinese positions on the conflict between Ukraine and the Russian Federation, which is now in its 23rd day.

The United States noted our position — that we want to draw the conflict to an end by compelling Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin to abandon his invasion of Ukraine, through a regime of economic sanctions against Russia and military assistance to the Ukrainian government of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. //

Tonight, while Mr. Putin may want to divide and conquer these two, highly co-dependent national interests, he has further to go to convince either of his position. It’s time to for Russia to stop believing its own propaganda and start listening to what the world is sobering up to.

Could a lot still go wrong here? Yes. That’s the scary part. But, it seems neither the US nor China want it to. And out of that, it may be possible for Ukraine and Russia to take the bell off the tiger.