US completes 1 month holding that Russian invasion of Ukraine is imminent

In one of his fables, Aesop tells the story of a young shepherd who, bored with the monotony of tending his flock, distracted himself by inventing stories about wolf attacks. The game worked once, twice, three times, in which the peasants ran to the aid of the shepherd who received them with laughter.

The lie lost its fun the day it became the truth. When a feared ferocious wolf did indeed attack the sheep, the shepherd boy’s cries for help were met with disbelief — and the predator filled his belly.

Fables and morals aside, the repeated warnings of the United States against an alleged Russian invasion of Ukraine strike the most critical ears as alarmist. Invasion “imminent” and “at any time” are scenarios designed by the official White House communication, a month ago, for the Russian-Ukrainian crisis.

The boil of the crisis waxes and wanes, but the US government has little evidence that a Russian attack is imminent.

The insistence on strategy is criticized even by allies and puts Joe Biden in the role of having to justify the urgency, while Russian President Vladimir Putin unhurriedly maintains troop movements that, in theory and in practice, do not cross lines. red.

In mid-November, when military actions began to draw the attention of the West, what was at stake was not even Ukraine, but the refugee crisis on the border between Russian ally Belarus and Poland, a member of NATO (Western military alliance ).

In December, the US was more concerned with voicing concerns and possible sanctions on the Russians. Even at the beginning of January, the speech dealt with only “possible” developments. Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, said on the 13th of last month that there was no illusion in the US government about what “the prospects of potential conflict and potential Russian military escalation” are. He also avoided talking about “probabilities”.

The speech changed five days later, when Biden’s spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, told a news conference: “Let’s be clear: our understanding is that this situation is extremely dangerous. We are now at a stage where Russia could, at any time, launch an attack on Ukraine.”

Since then, there have been at least 15 other official communications in which the scenario predicted by the Americans was an invasion “at any moment” —including two dates set, February 16 and 20— or “imminent”, a word used on February 25, January by Psaki. Asked about possible changes in understanding, the spokeswoman was emphatic: “Well, imminent has a very intense meaning, doesn’t it?”

Despite the frictions of recent days in Ukrainian territory occupied by pro-Kremlin rebels — relatively common since the 2014 ceasefire, but now in a much more delicate timing — the insistence on the version of an imminent Russian invasion for so long begins to wear off and generate suspicions about the real motivation of the US in the crisis.

In early February, for example, when asked whether there was evidence of an alleged fake video being produced by Putin to justify the invasion, State Department spokesman Ned Price replied to a reporter that if he doubted the government American to seek “solace in the information the Russians are releasing”.

This Thursday (17), the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, went to the UN Security Council to reiterate the predictions of the attack at any time and explain the American position in the face of criticism of possible exaggerations.

“If Russia does not invade Ukraine, we will be relieved that it has changed its course and proved our predictions wrong,” the US diplomat said. “That would be a much better outcome than the route we’re on now. And we’ll gladly accept any criticism leveled at us.”

But the persistence of the speech and the refusal to present evidence also brings out a recent past of distrust in the American accusations.

Twenty years ago, the country accused Saddam Hussein’s regime of hiding weapons of mass destruction – the main argument, never proven, for the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Another sign of the failure of US intelligence agencies that spills over into the reliability of American words on the part of allies and rivals is more recent and is already on Biden’s account: the chaotic withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, after 20 years of occupation, in the face of swift and unexpected takeover of Kabul by the Taliban.

What is publicly known about Putin’s intentions is that the Russian leader must continue to use troop movements to try to keep countries of the former Soviet Union that have experienced revolutions – coups, in Moscow’s view – under his influence and away from NATO. the beginning of the century, including the overthrow of the Russian-allied government in Ukraine in 2014.

“Russia doesn’t want the costs of an open conflict, nor do Westerners. But Putin doesn’t back down from its interests when he withdraws troops,” says Lucas Leite, professor of international relations at Faap and a researcher at the National Institute of Science and Technology for Studies on the USA. “Indirectly, the troops remain, control of eastern Ukraine is still with groups linked to Russia, and their retreat probably only occurs with a western retreat as well. Putin is strengthened.”

In the American urgency, there is also a domestic component. Fragile at home, Biden paints an external enemy ready to violate values ​​dear to the US and its allies and is trying to show firmness ahead of the midterm elections, which take place in November and could turn the already unfavorable tide for the Democrat.

A year after taking office, Biden has dropped from his initial 57% approval rating among Americans to about 40% — a rate that, at this point in his term, is second only to that of his Republican predecessor, former President Donald Trump. With little consensus even within the Democratic Party, the country has the highest inflation rate in 40 years (7.5% at the beginning of February), and a pandemic that has not yet gone away.

“A part that voted for Biden is feeling very frustrated. The economy improves, but they don’t feel it on a daily basis. The middle layer of the population, most affected in the 2008 crisis, remains in a precarious situation, benefits take time to come “, analyzes Cristina Pecequilo, professor of international relations at the Federal University of São Paulo. “It’s a very turbulent country internally. Trying to externalize it has very low effectiveness.”

From a diplomatic perspective, the US government’s strategy can still prove to be wrong by passing mixed signals.

“Biden insisting on ‘invasion at any moment’ can be bad for negotiations, because it demonstrates that, while behind the scenes there is an attempt to build bridges, he continues to use this narrative to rebuild himself, to guide his image and that of a country that goes to the extreme to defend freedom and democracy”, says Leite.