A military analyst, meanwhile, says the U.S. president needs a war in Europe much worse than his Russian adversary and Ukraine’s surrounded and outgunned president.
On Thursday, President Biden talked to Ukraine’s president by phone and advised him there is a “distinct possibility” Russia could take military action in February, The Associated Press reported.
A report by CNN described a much more dire phone call. Biden warned Volodymr Zelensky to "prepare for impact" and warned his capital city will be "sacked" by Russia. But the Ukraine leader pushed back on his stark warning, CNN said.
The AP story reported Friday that U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told Pentagon reporters that Vladimir Putin has the “capability” to attack Ukraine in a variety of ways, from a full-scale invasion to more limited incursions, after mobilizing troops on the border.
AFN has reported Russia is undergoing military exercises with ally Belarus, a northern neighbor to Ukraine. That means Russian tanks and infantry can roll across that border and hit Ukraine’s outmatched army from its northern flank, too.
Reacting to the latest developments from Ukraine, Bob Maginnis of the Family Research Council tells AFN this is not just a military standoff. There is politics at work, too, says Maginnis, a retired U.S. army intelligence officer who knows his history of U.S conflicts. President Woodrow Wilson pulled the U.S. into World War I after promising to stay out of the conflict, he says, and President Franklin Roosevelt was witnessing the Depression drag on until America’s entry into World War II ended it.
More recently, President Bill Clinton was accused of a "Wag the Dog" stunt when he ordered NATO planes to bomb Serbian military targets during the Monica Lewinsky scandal and impeachment.
President Biden is currently witnessing disastrous poll numbers, even among Democrats who don't want him to run for re-election. On Capitol Hill, Democrats are expecting a political bloodbath on Election Day.
At the same time Ukraine’s president is urging calm, and even accusing the West of creating panic, President Biden said this week Russia’s invasion would “change the world” and compared a Russian invasion on a scale of World War II.
“I don't see anything good,” Maginnis concludes, “coming out of the White House.”
