It has been an unhappy birthday celebration for Vladimir Putin’s one-year anniversary of his invasion of Ukraine. Rather than handing the Russian authoritarian a birthday cake at the United Nations last week, the international community slapped him with a condemnation calling for Moscow’s immediate withdrawal from Ukraine. The General Assembly overwhelmingly approved the resolution, with 141 countries voting against Russia, 32 (including China) abstaining, and only six backing Russia. The latter were a rogues’ gallery of Russian cronies: Belarus, North Korea, Syria, Eritrea, Mali and Nicaragua.
Vlad found he had only seven friends at his dubious party.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the resolution “a powerful signal of unflagging global support for Ukraine.”
That was last Thursday, Feb. 23. Three days earlier, President Biden made a surprise visit to Kyiv to meet with Zelenskyy and promise a gazillion more dollars in aid. CNN’s report captured the drama: “The highly secretive visit — which took place as air raid sirens could be heard ringing out around Kyiv while Biden walked alongside Zelenskyy around the gold-domed St. Michael’s Cathedral — comes at a critical moment in the 12-month conflict, with Russia preparing for an expected spring offensive.”
Biden announced a half-billion dollars in new assistance, including “more javelins and Howitzers,” not to mention more sanctions on Moscow. “One year later, Kyiv stands,” Biden affirmed, no doubt making Putin fume smoke out of his ears. “And Ukraine stands.”
Bad-boy Putin was not happy with all of this. He stomped from his birthday party in a petulant fit, looking for toys to smash. He grabbed a big one. The day after Biden’s Kyiv visit, Putin announced Russia was suspending its participation in the new START treaty, the last remaining nuclear arms pact with the United States, begun back in the Reagan years.
Two days later came the U.N. vote.
Putin and his commanders should be likewise angry with a report by Seymour Hersh. The longtime investigative reporter’s piece is titled “How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline.” Via many unnamed sources, Hersh details a high-tech, clandestine U.S. operation last June by Navy divers to attach explosive charges to Russia’s underwater Nord Stream pipelines. Those subsequent detonations were a shock. The world wondered who was responsible. Other than Russia itself, in perhaps an internal act of sabotage that Putin wanted to blame on his enemies, only the United States really had the ability to pull off an operation like that.
Did we take out Putin’s pipelines? Perhaps.
All of this means the world’s two leading nuclear powers, the United States and Russia, are both more involved in Ukraine than ever. This should give us serious pause and concern.
I’ve long feared that a desperate Putin, who continues to lose in Ukraine, especially as America and allies make things harder, will lash out and do something really desperate. Yes, like nuclear weapons. This man is a thug. Say what you want about Ukraine and Zelenskyy and their imperfections, but it was Putin who, unprovoked, invaded a democratic neighbor and began annihilating its people. Any leader who would act that way is capable of much more.
One year from Putin’s invasion, he might appear to be losing, but this ugly mess is far from over.
Paul Kengor is a professor of political science and chief academic fellow of the Institute for Faith & Freedom at Grove City College.