“Now Putin has his back against the wall and the allegations that Kyiv has biological and chemical weapons are a “clear signal that he is considering using both in the war in Ukraine: he has used chemical weapons in the past, and we have to be watch what happens.”. Joe Biden is sounding the alarm on the eve of his departure for Europe, where he will attend three summits (the G7 summit, the NATO summit and, a real novelty, the European Council), before landing on a mission in Poland on Friday presents itself as one of the key projections by the American leadership to keep the western front united and even more effective against Moscow that tonight has revived the specter of a nuclear conflict.
With Biden there will also be Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin but not Jen Psaki, positive for Covid, unlike the President who has tested negative and is not considered a ‘close contact’ after meeting his spokesman twice yesterday, but at a distance. US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said in a White House briefing that in Brussels, Biden will announce joint action to strengthen energy security and reduce dependence on Russian oil and gas. And, again in agreement with the allies, new sanctions and tightening of those already in place. “The Russians will be able to take cities and territories, but they will never succeed in subjugating the Ukrainian people,” Sullivan warned.
One of the topics at the NATO summit will also be to define a common response if the tsar switches to chemical and biological weapons (or worse, nuclear, as Kremlin spokesman Peskov feared tonight, saying Russia will use them if this were the case it sees “its existence threatened”). It should be a “red line” for some European leaders, but the US President remains cautious, preferring to speak of “severe consequences”. “Putin did not expect the breadth or strength of our unit, and the more he gets cornered, the stronger the tactics he can employ,” he told executives of major American companies, urging them to step up their defenses the imminent threat of a Russian cyber attack. “Now Putin speaks an untruth about the new false flag operations he is preparing, including the accusation that we Americans have biological and chemical weapons in Europe,” he condemned. On the other side of the Atlantic, Moscow has also denied the allegations, calling them “malicious innuendos.” “We don’t have such weapons,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov replied in an escalation that comes close to severing diplomatic ties between the two superpowers.
The commanderinchief also praised the compactness of the alliance: “Nato has never been stronger or more united in its history, mainly thanks to Putin,” he assured, implicitly underlining one of the boomerang effects of the Tsar’s actions. A unity that also extends to the Quad, the informal strategic alliance between Australia, Japan, India and the United States, but Biden didn’t hesitate to underscore India’s “exception” with his “shaky” response. The American President, on the other hand, acknowledged that Xi Jinping does not deviate from his ambiguous neutrality. And, as Sullivan explained, he wanted to ensure that the Europeans, too, in view of the Chinese in Moscow responsible for the 1 arms deliveries.
However, the main focus of Biden’s European travel agenda remains how to crank up the Western response to stop Moscow. In addition to sanctions, there are various options on the table: increasing defensive military supplies to Kyiv, switching to offensive (with the risk of escalating the conflict) or the total gas and oil embargo, on which the opposition Germany, Italy and others stand because of their heavy dependence on Russian supplies. The Eastern European states, on the other hand, are pushing for the deployment of an international peacekeeping force in Ukraine in areas not occupied by Russians: a proposal that NATO and Biden themselves have so far rejected.
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