US President Joe Biden is scheduled to meet his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Geneva on June 16. The meeting promises to be action-packed, just like the one between the two leaders in 2011, in which Putin had shut down an entire facility before allowing Biden to continue with his anti-Russia tirade – on no less than Russian soil. The then Vice President’s microphone was shut and the venue turned black. Now, Joe Biden is looking to somehow take steps towards neutralising the ten-year-old embarrassment, but Putin is ready with a strategy this time too.
Vladimir Putin has come out and directly warned Joe Biden. Putin’s warning comes amidst a barrage of sanctions imposed on Moscow by the Biden administration, including curbs to its sovereign debt market. The sanctions were cleared by Biden’s cabinet in April, and promise to loom over any prospect of the two countries taking any steps with a semblance towards peace.
Vladimir Putin said the United States was wrong to think that it is “powerful enough” to get away with threatening other countries, a mistake, he said, that led to the downfall of the former Soviet Union. This is a big statement coming from Putin. The fall of the Soviet Union was a watershed moment in the 20th century, and Putin admitting that USSR made grave mistakes leading to its collapse, should scare Biden. It is a warning from the Kremlin to the American deep state, that no nation or federation of states is immune to collapse.
Putin remarked, “The problem with empires is that they think they are powerful enough to make some mistakes. We will buy these (people), bully them, make a deal with them, give necklaces to them, threaten them with battleships. And this will solve all the problems. But problems accumulate. A moment comes when they cannot be solved anymore.”
While saying such behaviour reminded him of the Soviet Union, Putin added, “The people who do this, they probably assume that the United States has such economic, military and political might that it can get away with that. It is no big deal, that is what they think.”
Tensions have risen between the United States and Russia manifold, especially after the Biden administration took charge of the White House in Washington this year. Even prior to Biden taking over, the White House imposed sanctions on several Ukrainian individuals and entities, accusing them of meddling in the US election and associating them with a pro-Russian Ukrainian lawmaker.
After Joe Biden’s accession to power, enmity between the two powers has only grown – despite the US President making it a life mission to cut down America’s hostilities with countries like China and Japan. Only exacerbating the hostilities – the Biden administration now seems to be keen to wage a cyberwar against Russian hackers. Treating ransomware and cyber attacks as a “national security threat”, the Biden administration is contemplating offensive cyber operations against hackers inside Russia.
According to NBC News, the disruption of gasoline and meat supplies in recent weeks, caused by cyber-attacks has illustrated how hackers from Russia have progressed from being a mere nuisance to now a source of grave economic damage. Effectively, Joe Biden is directly threatening Vladimir Putin – and that by no estimates is a wise choice to make.
But that is not all. Joe Biden has also been trying his luck around with Belarus – a Russian ally. After the Ryanair fiasco in which a dissident journalist and his girlfriend were taken into custody by the Lukashenko regime, the Biden administration alongside the European Union stepped up aggression against Belarus. This has not gone down well with Moscow. Therefore, Putin’s warning to Washington must also be seen in the context of recent happenings in Belarus.
This is perhaps the very first time Vladimir Putin has warned the United States not to make the mistakes that the Soviet Union did unless of course, it is preparing for a similar fate. Coming a few days prior to his meeting with Biden, Putin’s tone and tenor are bound to scare Joe.
