World War III or nah? US President Joe Biden and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin are set to speak by phone on Tuesday, as the crisis surrounding Ukraine gets dicier by the day. Russia has massed more than 100,000 troops along its border with the country, and the US is warning that Putin is gearing up to invade soon, though the underlying intel isn’t public. No one is quite sure what Putin’s up to with this stunt. Is he trying to pressure Kyiv into moving ahead with the lopsided (but probably best possible) Minsk peace accords of 2015? Or is the Kremlin seeking a broader NATO commitment not to expand further? Or does Putin actually want to invade Ukraine? Either way, Biden has his work cut out for him. Putin is clearly more comfortable risking lives and money to preserve a sphere of influence in Ukraine than the West is, so the US president has to be careful: don’t set out any red lines that NATO isn’t willing to back, but also don’t push the situation into a broader war that no one (ideally) wants.
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What We're Watching: Biden and Putin chat
By Alex KlimentDecember 06, 2021
Alex Kliment
Alex wears a few different caps and tips them all regularly. He writes for the GZERO Daily, works as a field correspondent for GZERO's nationally syndicated TV show GZERO WORLD WITH IAN BREMMER, and writes/directs/voices GZERO's award-winning puppet satire show PUPPET REGIME. Prior to joining GZERO, Alex worked as an analyst covering Russia and broader Emerging Markets for Eurasia Group. He has also written for the Financial Times from Washington, DC, and Sao Paulo Brazil. In his spare time, he makes short films and composes scores for long ones. He studied history and Slavic literature at Columbia and has a Master's from Johns Hopkins SAIS. He's a native New Yorker, a long-suffering Mets fan, and owns too many bicycles.
