A tattered Ukrainian national flag flutters in the wind near the town of Maryinka in eastern Ukraine, June 5, 2015. (Gleb Garanich / Reuters)
EDITOR’S NOTE: Each week we cross-post an excerpt from Katrina vanden Heuvel’s column at the WashingtonPost.com. Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.
The crisis over Ukraine grows simultaneously more dangerous and more absurd. Russia has amassed more than 100,000 troops on the Ukrainian border, demanding that NATO not admit Ukraine and stop its expansion east. Russian officials want those demands answered immediately, but President Vladimir Putin also says he won’t make war.
The Biden administration warns of “imminent war,” yet Ukraine’s president tells the administration to calm down, that the false alarms are damaging the country’s economy. Even though President Biden, and his two predecessors, Germany and France, have made clear that Ukraine is not a national interest worth fighting for, the Biden administration refuses to tell the Russians that it won’t do what it has no intention of doing, even at the risk of armed conflict.
War is unimaginable.
Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.
Katrina vanden HeuvelTwitterKatrina vanden Heuvel is editor and publisher of The Nation, America’s leading source of progressive politics and culture. An expert on international affairs and US politics, she is an award-winning columnist and frequent contributor to The Guardian. Vanden Heuvel is the author of several books, including The Change I Believe In: Fighting for Progress in The Age of Obama, and co-author (with Stephen F. Cohen) of Voices of Glasnost: Interviews with Gorbachev’s Reformers.