With images of bodies in the street and a none relenting territory drive….
America and Europe is now working to systematically exclude Russia from defense and finance to trade and international diplomacy.
This is directly opposite those who have pushed for Russia being part of Europe ….
It is aimed at the leader of Russia who is being called a ‘war criminal’ commiting ‘genocide’…..
But it is impossible to separate the action meant for Putin from the country itself, which the West has to be looking for’ regime change’, from the inside, which seems to have little chance …..
This whole thing will be somewhat difficult since Russia does import energy and natural resoureces to the West, which HAD been working with Russia up to this time….
At NATO and the European Union, and at the State Department, the Pentagon and allied ministries, blueprints are being drawn up to enshrine new policies across virtually every aspect of the West’s posture toward Moscow, from defense and finance to trade and international diplomacy.
Outrage is most immediately directed at Putin himself, who President Biden said last month “can’t remain in power.” While “we don’t say regime change,” said a senior E.U. diplomat, “it is difficult to imagine a stable scenario with Putin acting the way he is.”….
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Few Western leaders are willing to venture a guess as to when, and how, the Ukraine crisis will play out. Many of the proposed changes “can’t be fully decided until we know how this conflict ends,” said Alexander Vershbow, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, senior Pentagon official and deputy NATO secretary general. “Does it end?” Or does it drag on with an uneasy cease-fire, with “no war, no peace, for several years?”
But the long-term strategy is being drawn up even as the allies address the immediate crisis with escalating sanctions against Moscow, weapons aid to Ukraine, and the deployment of tens of thousands of their own troops to NATO’s eastern border. Many of those measures and more are now expected to stay permanently in place, according to public leader statements and conversations with eight senior U.S. and foreign officials, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss closed-door planning.
“At the end of the day, what we want to see is a free and independent Ukraine, a weakened and isolated Russia and a stronger, more unified, more determined West,” Biden national security adviser Jake Sullivan said….
Note…..
The above does NOT apply to ALL of Europe…..
Germany is having a hard time separating itself from Russia
….
Germany’s employers and unions have joined together in opposing an immediate European Union ban on natural gas imports from Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, citing factory shutdowns and job losses.…
LA Times…