They took the train in the greatest secrecy. Through the window, driving towards this city of kyiv which seemed promised two months ago to the Russian conquest, they observed the Ukrainian landscapes, suddenly so concrete. On this April 24, two of the highest American officials, key elements of the Biden administration, illustrated by the gesture Washington’s commitment in favor of Ukraine, therefore against Russia. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin had a meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky. The Ukrainian President welcomed them as familiar and indispensable interlocutors.
Better than any press release, the hugs between the two men and the Ukrainian ministers Dmytro Kuleba (foreign affairs) and Oleksii Reznikov (defense) illustrated the obvious. For the United States, Ukraine means much more than Ukraine. This foreign war has become familiar; America appropriated it, from a distance.
“The Biden administration had read Russian military intentions very well from the start, prepared sanctions with the Europeans, but also thought it was a lost cause, emphasizes Daniel Fried, a former high-ranking diplomat and expert on Europe, now an expert at the Atlantic Council. That the Ukrainians would fight bravely and lose quickly. However, today, there is a whole range of possible outcomes. » The successive deliveries of increasingly sophisticated and numerous military equipment rewarded the authors of this surprise.
By their sacrifice in the name of their sovereignty, the Ukrainian people have become the armed wing – by the United States and the Europeans – of the confrontation between the liberal democracies and the authoritarian regimes, of which the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, is a figurehead. A very present theme during Joe Biden’s presidential campaign. What is at stake, from Lviv to Donbass, from Kharkiv to Odessa, is the place of the West in the world and of the United States at its head, its capacity for mobilization and defense, its attachment to principles and international law, and the price he is willing to pay on their behalf.
Anchoring the United States in the XXIe century
“It is impossible not to be moved by what the Ukrainians have achieved, explained Antony Blinken before the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Senate, on April 26. It is also impossible not to believe that they will continue to succeed, because they know what they are fighting for. » To believe in victory without drawing its outlines, to transform this war into “strategic failure” for the Kremlin, dreaming without saying it of a general short-circuit within the Russian regime: such is the new horizon line of the three horsemen of the Biden team, MM. Blinken and Austin, as well as National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.
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