Russia

Kharkiv, Ukraine President Joe Biden on Monday showed the world that, as Volodymyr Zelensky said in his London speech two weeks ago, we do not need to be afraid of Moscow. Or maybe we don't need to be afraid so long as Biden is on Ukrainian soil. As I write this, Biden's train has likely crossed into Polish territory, and, on cue, the air-raid alarms are wailing across all of eastern Ukraine. No one I know in Ukraine, where I’ve been since the pandemic and throughout every minute of this war, thinks that Biden's visit accomplished something magical. But it did serve a crucial purpose: boosting the spirits here, amid a week full of warnings that Moscow will do something awful.

As the battlefront news for Ukraine turns grim, with even the New York Times conceding that “Ukrainians in [the] East” are “outnumbered and worn out,” the hope, as usual, is that a magic weapon will save the day. We have seen many such invocations in the last twelve months: Javelin anti-tank missiles, Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, M777 Howitzers, HIMARS long-range precision missile launchers, assorted Western tanks. All have been hailed in their time as potentially tipping the balance against Putin’s hordes. None have succeeded, or, in the case of as yet undelivered tanks, are likely to succeed, in altering the fundamental military balance in the war, though they contribute much to the balance sheets of the relevant Western arms corporations.

Kharkiv, Ukraine Wednesday, the morning after Russia sent six long-range missiles into the center of Ukraine’s second city, I went for a run in snow-covered Gorky Park listening to the music of the German band Scorpions: “Down to Gorky Park, listening to the wind of change.” Scorpions were singing about a park of the same name in Moscow but I wanted to hear that song here in Kharkiv. When that song was released in 1990, the Soviet Union was breaking up. There was so much hope. Ukraine and other nations that had lived under the Iron Curtain began the process of finding freedom, happiness, possibility. But Russia? Ah, I thought as I ran past the fresh crater of a Russian missile in Kharkiv’s Gorky Park, what happened to Russia? What happened to that “wind of change"?

It is not inevitable that the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania would be among freedom’s most potent defenders. Nestled between the Russian mainland and Moscow’s exclave of Kaliningrad, their only direct connection to their NATO allies is through the vulnerable Suwalki Gap. For its part, NATO only has small rotational forces stationed in the three countries. At first glance, one would expect these tiny nations (Lithuania is the largest at 2.8 million people) to prefer flying under the radar. Instead they have become some of the most vocal and powerful defenders of the Western way of life. Tiny though they may be, the Baltic countries have managed to stand up to the two greatest enemies of freedom at work today, Russia and China.

Germany has a new defense minister. The funny thing is that nobody really knows who he is, what he stands for, and whether he’s capable of doing his job. Boris Pistorius will take over the ministry from Christine Lambrecht, whose one-year tenure was about as embarrassing and gaffe-prone as the Bundeswehr itself. There are too many blemishes on her record to examine in a single post — we would be here all day. But one of the more notable misfires was her tone-deaf New Year’s Eve video, where she reminded viewers that a war was going on in Europe as a fireworks display went off behind her. For many in the German defense establishment, Lambrecht’s departure can be summed up in two words: good riddance. Not much is known about her replacement.

As the House GOP continues to make a fool out of itself trying to elect a speaker, those watching might be wondering how all of this will impact the war in Ukraine. The group of around twenty Republican lawmakers who have opposed Kevin McCarthy in the (as of this writing) eight votes taken so far for the speakership include some of the most hardline anti-Ukraine-aid Republicans, like Lauren Boebert and Matt Gaetz. A group this small in the House should be nothing more than an annoyance, but the changes they are demanding — and even those McCarthy has conceded to — give them far more power. The most threatening among them is a provision to return to the system whereby one member of the House can launch a motion to vacate the chair, forcing an up or down vote on the speaker.

With his whirlwind visit to Washington, Volodymyr Zelensky cemented his bromance with Joe Biden. Even as MAGA Republicans have been sniping at Ukraine — Donald Trump, Jr. derided Zelensky on Wednesday as an “ungrateful welfare queen” — Biden declared that he will support Ukraine “as long as it takes.” Welcoming his Ukrainian counterpart to the White House, he went out of his way to depict support for Ukraine as bipartisan and unflinching. Like Herman Melville in his novel White-Jacket, Biden believes that “we bear the ark of the liberties of the world.” The Russian invasion and Ukrainian defiance are the making of Joe Biden’s presidency. Biden may well go down in history as the man who finally drove the stake through the heart of the Russian empire.

All is not well in the transatlantic relationship. This might come as a surprise given that the United States and Europe have been remarkably unified on Europe’s most urgent security crisis in the post-Cold War era. Despite Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attempt to inject division into the pro-Ukraine coalition by throttling gas supplies to Europe, the West is sticking to its guns, maintaining sanctions on Moscow until either the war ends or Russian troops are forced to withdraw. This consensus, however, has masked disputes between Washington and its European allies that are becoming more difficult to manage.