KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, on a last foreign trip before leaving office, has met with Ukraine’s president and called on the impending Donald Trump administration to retain Ukraine-related sanctions against Russia.
Biden’s comments Monday at a briefing with President Petro Poroshenko came after Trump indicated in a Times of London interview that he could end sanctions imposed in the aftermath Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea in return for a nuclear arms reduction deal.
“The Crimea-related sanctions against Russia must remain in place until Russia returns full control to the people of Ukraine,” Biden said.
Other U.S. sanctions are connected to Russia’s involvement in the separatist war in eastern Ukraine. Biden said that Russia must fulfill its obligations under the 2015 Minsk agreement on ending that conflict.
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Sorry Joe but they simply don’t care. They believe they are smarter and tougher than anyone else and if THIS (Putin, Bibi, etal) don’t work out it’ll be someone else…
This is why the Obama/Clinton strategy with Russia was such a fiasco. Confrontation instead of cooperation. Job security for people in NATO and the Defense and State departments instead of life security for the people of Europe, Asia and the U.S.
To the extent Trump seeks to reverse this strategy, I think he’s on the right track – just as Reagan was right to circumvent the entrenched bureaucracies and talk with Gorbachev directly.
It doesn’t matter what you think about it Ralph Novyy. Trump’s policies are chosen for him. He’s merely a dutiful and conscientious implementer.
If you know anything about history you know that Obama inflicted the biggest defeat on Russia in over 250.
Prior to about 1750, the Ukraine or “Breadbasket of Europe” was being contested by Poland, Hapsburg Austria and the Ottoman Empire. Then Catherine the Great showed up and settle the issue, that is settled the issue until Obama and Putin. That is under Obama for the first time since Catherine the Great the Ukraine is free from Russian domination.
This does not necessarily mean that Obama won the Ukraine but rather that Putin lost the Ukraine. The Ukraine was always the most unruly of Russian provinces or Soviet Republics. To increase Russian influence in the Ukraine Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev made the Crimea part of the Ukraine Soviet Republic. Khrushchev move to increase Russian influence by giving a territory with a large Russian population seemed to work even after the Soviet Union ceased to exist as the Ukraine kept electing pro-Russian leaders. As recently as 2010 Putin’s hand picked man, Viktor Yanukovych, was elected to lead the Ukraine.
However, Yanukovych turned out to be an incompetent thug much in manner of his patron saint, Putin himself. In response to a demonstration against his corrupt incompetent pro-Russian leadership, instead of trying to negotiate the demands with the Ukrainians, he resorted to the old Russian solution of butchery. The problem is that Russia visa the world is much weaker under Putin then it has been since before Catherine the Great. So instead of successfully brutally putting down a peoples rebellion against his leadership, Yanukovych had to flee for his life leaving the government in the hands of anti-Russian pro Ukrainian nationalists.
Putin immediate action was two fold. The first was to blame Obama. No doubt Western intelligence, the same intelligence Trump is trying to discredit, supported the protesters, but nobody thought the result of the protest would lead to a Ukraine free from Russia. Ukraine only got its freedom because of Putin/Yanukovych brutish incompetence. Had Yanukovych tried to negotiate easing of his policies and not started murdering the population, Ukraine would almost certainly still be in the Russian umbrella.
The second part of Putin’s immediate reaction to Putin’s own incompetence which he now saw was certain to lead to a free Ukraine, was to take back the Crimea. This action assured Ukraine’s freedom by removing a big chuck of Russian influence in the Ukraine.
This is where we stand today, a free Ukraine and Putin dealing with/trying to deny this reality. That Ukraine, which never really in history (someone may argue that after the fall of the Golden Horde Ukraine had a very brief interval of independence) has been an independent nation will have to fight to determine its actual borders is as unusual as a December snowfall in Moscow.
This is where we are today as Pro-Russian Donald Trump is about to become the American President. With Russia weakest than it has been in 250 years and the Ukraine for the first time independent with final borders still unsettled.
So the question is, replacing an American president with a Putin type like Yanukovych only named Donald Trump, will have what effect on Russian attempts to regain the Ukraine.
Or to summarize, will pro-Russian Trump be able to repeal and replace the Obama policy of freedom from Russia of the Ukraine with a policy that destroys the self-determination of the “Breadbasket of Europe.”
Russian propaganda alert. Only a troll would push the idea that NATO and the State Department are the problem here and that Trump=Reagan and Putin=Gorbachev. Flagged.