Even as Russian troops and armor now surround Ukraine on three sides, Vladimir Putin’s complaints lie not so much with it directly, but, rather, with the West and all the injustices he believes it has meted out over the years, yaffaesque writes.
, a grinding conflict that continues to this day. Still, the news that the Biden Administration has specific intelligence pointing to an imminent Russian attack, with Kyiv as the ultimate target, provided a jolt of anxiety to the already fraught waiting game unfolding in Ukraine’s capital. Biden reportedly gave some Western allies a specific date: Wednesday, February 16th.
In addition to the U.S. Embassy, a number of missions in Kyiv are pulling out or relocating their staff. On Sunday,that international airlines would cease flying to Ukraine, as insurance companies were refusing to cover flights in and out of the country. This last bit of news prompted a friend, the talented political journalist Kristina Berdynskykh, to note that it appeared as if Ukraine—not Russia—were being sanctioned.
“Of course, this all becomes psychologically exhausting,” Oleksandr Danylyuk, who was Zelensky’s first national-security adviser, told me. “You can try and refuse to panic—and this is what most Ukrainians are doing at the moment—but somewhere in the back of your mind you can’t help but think what will you do in the case of war. Will you flee, and to where; what about your children, elderly relatives. Such thinking takes a toll, and even without actual war it incurs real costs.
Danylyuk explained how he understood the logic: If there’s no war, Zelensky can effectively say I told you so. And, if war does come, Danylyuk said, “this is a new reality, a totally different game, and it doesn’t matter what your position was earlier.” Andriy Zagorodnyuk, Ukraine’s former defense minister, told me of the Russian approach, “They are not reckless, but actually playing on the safe side. If you notice, they have not yet openly threatened Ukraine with force, because, if you do that and nothing happens, you look weak. It looks like they’re trying to keep many different options open.”
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