Joe Biden will rush into the “Situation Room” of the White House at 10:00 am to try to avoid a military escalation in Ukraine, facing a Vladimir Poutine who wants to mark his own strategic “red lines”.
Everything about the White House’s preparations speaks of the high degree of tension surrounding this videoconference to be held at 6:00 p.m. Moscow time.
First, the choice of location: the “Situation Room”, an ultra-secure room from where the American executive manages sensitive military interventions.
The press does not have access to it. There will therefore be no photographs or courtesies exchanged in front of journalists, as during a recent virtual summit of Joe Biden with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, which was held in a living room of the White House. .
Difficult, then, not to see a symbol in the very early Tuesday visit of the American president to the World War II memorial in Washington. Joe Biden gathered there in memory of the 80th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, this major turning point in American history.
His ambition to establish a “stable” and “predictable” relationship with Russia, expressed in June during a face-to-face summit between the two men in Geneva, seems to have lived, at least for the moment.
Washington, NATO and Kiev accuse Moscow of massing troops on the border with Ukraine in order to attack the country. The scenario recalls 2014 and the Russian annexation of the Crimean peninsula, then the outbreak in eastern Ukraine of an armed conflict which left more than 13,000 dead.
The Kremlin denies any plans for an invasion. And Moscow accuses Washington of neglecting its own concerns: the increased activity of NATO countries in the Black Sea, the Ukrainian desire to join the Atlantic alliance and Kiev’s ambition to arm itself in the West.
“Russia never intended to attack anyone, but we have red lines,” Russian presidency spokesman Dmitry Peskov assured Monday.
More sanctions?
Many observers, in Europe and the United States, believe that Vladimir Putin is bluffing with the deployment of forces on Ukraine’s borders, but few completely rule out the possibility of an attack.
If Moscow were to take action, a senior White House official warned that the United States would “respond favorably” to a demand for an increased American military presence in Eastern Europe and give more support to the Ukrainian army.
Washington is also brandishing the threat of economic sanctions against the Russian regime. And ensures that they would be more painful than those that have piled up without much effect on Russia since 2014.
“We are well aware that the American side has an addiction to sanctions,” the Kremlin spokesman said ironically on Tuesday.
Joe Biden, who described Vladimir Poutine as a “killer”, must skilfully manage the Ukrainian crisis, he who has already irritated the traditional allies of the United States with the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The US president took care to discuss Monday with European leaders, including those of France and Germany, to insist on their common “determination” to defend Ukrainian sovereignty.
He will also report on his meeting with Vladimir Poutine to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has been annoyed in recent months by the Westerners’ refusal to accelerate Ukraine’s accession to NATO.
Don’t “expect immediate breakthroughs”
The holding of this virtual Biden-Putin summit is already a success for Russia, which claims to be an unavoidable geopolitical power and thus at least temporarily tears the American president away from his major strategic priority, rivalry with China.
It had been a few weeks since the Kremlin called for a face-to-face meeting between the two presidents.
Beyond Ukraine, strategic stability and nuclear arms control, hacking and cybersecurity, or even Iran’s nuclear power, are all subjects likely to be debated on Tuesday.
“It is clear that when two presidents go towards dialogue, it is because they want to discuss the problems and do not aim at an impasse,” Dmitry Peskov noted. “But we should not expect immediate breakthroughs,” he warned.