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Things continue to escalate around the borders of Ukraine and the only real activity coming from the White House is an order from Democrat President Joe Biden’s administration for families of all American personnel a the U.S. Embassy to immediately evacuate.
President Biden gave the order for those connected to the embassy in Ukraine to leave the country because Russia was reportedly preparing to invade.
The Associated Press reported, “The department told the dependents of staffers at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv that they must leave the country. It also said that non-essential embassy staff could leave Ukraine at government expense. State Department officials stressed the Kyiv embassy will remain open and that the announcement does not constitute an evacuation.”
It was mentioned by the State Department in a Sunday statement that there was a threat of Russian invasion, it said that the situation could rapidly change with little notice. The statement described the security conditions along the border of Ukraine in Russia-occupied Crimea and Russia-controlled eastern Ukraine. It said that those conditions were unpredictable and could deteriorate with little notice. There have been demonstrations that turned violent at times throughout Ukraine, including in Kyiv.
The State Department indicated that there should not be travel in Ukraine because of the increased threats of Russian military action, along with the continued threat of COVID-19. They suggest that people show caution because of crime and civil unrest especially in some areas of increased risk.
The ranking member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), warned this past weekend that Russia would invade Ukraine unless Biden took immediate action. He suggested that Biden should impose sanctions against Russia before any invasion even took place.
“We need joint exercises in Poland, the Baltic states, Romania, Bulgaria to show Putin that we’re serious. Right now. Russian President Vladimir Putin doesn’t see we’re serious and that’s why the buildup is taking place. I think this all started with Afghanistan and the unconditional surrender to the Taliban when he saw weakness; weakness invites aggression. We saw that with Chamberlain and Hitler. You know, Reagan talked about peace through strength,” McCaul said.
Mike Pompeo, the former Secretary of State and CIA Director said that Putin was getting increasingly aggressive because he believes that President Biden is both weak and not credible. When he was asked if the situation with Russia and Ukraine could be diffused, he said that it was awful late.
Pompeo believes that the work of deterrence should have happened a long time ago, even a year ago. Something should have been done when Putin demanded that we give him a new START treaty extension. He said that we gave it to Putin for nothing.
Pompeo said that when there were Russian cyberattacks and they shut down the Colonial Pipeline, we told the Russians they could only attack certain sectors. There were 16 that were off-limits. He also said that Biden’s administration had a chance to establish deterrence when we left Afghanistan in the way we did.
But Putin has watched all these actions and determined that he can move without repercussion. So Pompeo thinks we have to take care of our families now who are in Ukraine and do the right thing. We also have to realize that these tactical moves that we might make are not the things that cause Vladimir Putin to recalculate his cost-benefit analysis.
Again, Pompeo reiterated that the Russians just don’t see Biden as credible, they just see all this talking and pieces of paper being exchanged with real teeth.
