The buildup of Russian troops at the Ukraine border continues despite ongoing diplomatic efforts to prevent an invasion. Speaking today at the American embassy in Kyiv, U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken announced that Russian President Vladimir Putin could escalate the conflict “on very short notice.” Later, President Joe Biden told reporters he expects that Putin will “move in.”

 

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 19, 2022 ∙ SUPPORTED BY SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL

Caroline Mimbs Nyce SENIOR ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Russia could invade Ukraine at any moment, the White House has warned. Then: Consider the octopus.

On the Ukraine-Russia Conflict (Sergei Supinsky / AFP / Getty) The buildup of Russian troops at the Ukraine border continues despite ongoing diplomatic efforts to prevent an invasion. Speaking today at the American embassy in Kyiv, U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken announced that Russian President Vladimir Putin could escalate the conflict “on very short notice.” Later, President Joe Biden told reporters he expects that Putin will “move in.”   The fast-evolving standoff is testing international order. Washington has been naive about Russia. Putin’s “endgame is always the same: reinforce his autocracy, undermine democracies—all democracies—and push Russian political influence as far as it will go,” Anne Applebaum warns. “Americans need to stop being surprised by this list of goals, and instead start writing a list of our own.” China is watching. How Xi Jinping “interprets (or worse, misinterprets) the outcome of the Ukraine standoff could influence whether and how China tries to reunify with Taiwan,” Michael Schuman argues. John McCain would have urged the West to defend democracy. The late senator argued again and again “that America’s ideals are its greatest cause, that our interests are best protected by their global advance,” his former chief of staff Mark Salter writes. Will this be World War III? (Probably not.) In a December edition of his newsletter, Peacefield, Tom Nichols assessed the likelihood of “an all-out conflict between Putin’s diseased regime and the 30 nations of the Atlantic Alliance.”