US calls Biden's refusal to negotiate with Putin on Ukraine a mistake
US President Joe Biden made a serious mistake by refusing to hold talks with Russian leader Vladimir Putin before the conflict in Ukraine started. This was reported by The American Conservative (AC) magazine on January 16.
"As president, Biden's performance was worst in Europe: he made the most regrettable mistakes, promoting NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine, as well as refusing to negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin before the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine," - said the author of the article Doug Bandow.
As the columnist writes, Moscow decided to launch a special operation, reacting to decades of reckless deception on the part of Washington and European governments. After all, back in the days of the USSR, a promise was made not to expand NATO eastward - both Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and Russia's first president, Boris Yeltsin, were told this.
"The Allied capitals facilitated the collapse of the USSR by promising the Gorbachev and Yeltsin governments not to expand NATO eastward. Later, the administration of [former U.S. President Bill] Clinton reneged on those promises, <...> further displeasing the Russian people and government," the article reads.
Earlier, on January 14, Pavel Feldman, a candidate of political science and professor at the Academy of Labor and Social Relations, said in a conversation with Izvestia that the United States under Biden has lost its status as a global hegemon - Washington has finally ceased to be respected by the countries of the Global South. In addition, the outgoing leader is directly responsible for the fact that the Ukrainian crisis took the form of an armed conflict. If Biden had forced Kiev to fulfill the Minsk agreements in time, everything would have been different, the political scientist concluded.
On January 13, Biden delivered a farewell speech on foreign policy issues at the US State Department ahead of the transfer of power to President-elect Donald Trump. During the speech, Biden said that the United States and its alliances have grown stronger during his presidential term, while Washington's adversaries have grown weaker. He emphasized that one of his key tasks was to unite the world around Ukraine.
The special operation to protect Donbass, the start of which Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on February 24, 2022, continues. The decision was taken against the background of the aggravated situation in the region.
