Seated at a large white table in an echoing Kremlin hall, Russian President Vladimir Putin summoned his top security officials one by one on Monday to give him their advice at a potential turning point in the crisis around Ukraine.
In a lengthy meeting of his Security Council, broadcast on state television in what a presenter called “unprecedented footage”, Putin cross-examined ministers and spy chiefs on the question of whether to recognize the two breakaway Donbass regions of eastern Ukraine as independent states.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the White House official made the comments after a Reuters eyewitness saw Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and General Mark Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, arrive at the White House on the U.S. Presidents Day federal holiday.
It would also effectively kill off the Minsk peace agreements that all sides, including Russia, have until now called the only possible route out of the crisis.At one point he intervened to emphasize that he had not discussed in advance what the officials were going to tell him, as if to dispel the impression that the proceedings had been choreographed.
It also gave Putin the chance to demonstrate his authority over the most powerful people in the land, putting them in their place if they slipped up.
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