Driving the news: Biden said the meeting can only take place if Russia does not invade Ukraine, according to statements from the White House and French President Emmanuel Macron's office, which first announced the news.
- The agreement was reached following two separate phone calls that Macron had with the U.S. and Russian leaders, according to a statement from the Élysée Palace, which said Putin had also "accepted the principle of such a summit."
- The proposed meeting between Biden and Putin would be followed by talks involving "relevant stakeholders to discuss security and strategic stability in Europe," per the Élysée Palace.
- "President Biden accepted in principle a meeting with President Putin following [Blinken's scheduled meeting with Lavrov], again, if an invasion hasn't happened," she added.
- "We are always ready for diplomacy. We are also ready to impose swift and severe consequences should Russia instead choose war. And currently, Russia appears to be continuing preparations for a full-scale assault on Ukraine very soon."
Comment: Note how Putin's comment is constructive and backed by facts whilst the US continues to bleet the same baseless speculation with the intention to smear, just in a variety of ways: 'If Russia does not invade', 'until an invasion begins', 'if an invasion hasn't happened', 'continuing preparations'. Also note how the US continues to avoid responding to Russia's security proposal in any meaningful way; anyone would think that the US actually prefers the situation in Ukraine to remain unstable.
Worth noting The announcement came as President Biden convened a meeting of the National Security Council on Sunday, as U.S. officials warned that Putin was stoking disinformation in order to blame Ukraine if Russian troops were to invade the country.
- Blinken told CNN earlier on Sunday confirming that his meeting with Lavrov "all depends on what Russia does in the coming days" and that Biden "is prepared to engage President Putin at any time, in any format" if it can prevent war.
Comment: If Blinken really wanted to 'prevent war', why has he not addressed and attempted to further Russia's security proposal?
Meanwhile, the U.S. has warned the UN in a letter that "Russian forces are creating lists" of Ukrainians "to be killed or sent to camps following a military occupation."
Comment: Typical pathological projection, because Ukraine has already been censoring, arresting, and even torturing the opposition.
Flashback: Biden and Putin last spoke in a Feb. 12 phone call, when the American president told his Russian counterpart that the U.S. and allies would "respond decisively and impose swift and severe costs" if Russia were to invade Ukraine.
Patrick Buchanan , a veteran of American political life, who served as an advisor to three American presidents (Nixon, Ford, Reagan), shared his opinion on the situation of tensions between Ukraine and Russia.
Buchanan believes Putin has already won by obtaining guarantees from the West that Ukraine will not join the NATO bloc. The former presidential adviser also spoke of US President Biden's statement that his country would not send its military to Ukraine to prevent the start of a world war. According to Buchanan, the real meaning of these words is the United States' unwillingness to fight for Ukraine.
Patrick Buchanan pointed out that Biden's refusal to send American troops into Ukrainian territory is an indirect confirmation that the United States has made concessions to Russia over Ukraine's NATO membership. After all, the United States, even without Ukraine's membership of NATO, has the ability to create a military infrastructure on its own territory. Buchanan, however, makes no mention of it.
According to him, Russia has won the first round of the conflict over Ukraine, having obtained the satisfaction of its most important request.
Furthermore, Buchanan suggested that the recognition of the special status of the LNR and DNR, spelled out in the Minsk agreements, is also possible. For this, the United States is intimidating Ukraine with an impending Russian invasion. At the same time, Washington is frankly annoyed that Zelensky ignores their warnings, disrupting the large-scale disinformation campaign to some extent.