Category Archives: US foreign policy

US weapons arrive in Ukraine as Biden faces test over allies’ unity – live

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Joe Biden will meet with several CEOs this afternoon to discuss Democrats’ Build Back Better Act, the $1.75tn spending package that includes massive investments in healthcare, childcare and climate initiatives.

“This afternoon, I’m meeting with CEOs who support passing my Build Back Better Agenda to discuss how it’ll invest in American workers, grow our economy, and lower inflation in the long-term,” Biden said on Twitter.

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Why are Germany and France at odds with the Anglosphere over how to handle Russia?

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Analysis: Differing views over Russia within Nato alliance resurface in Ukraine crisis

Can the western alliance against Russia over its buildup of troops on the Ukrainian border hold together? It is a question that politicians and diplomats are increasingly grappling with amid fears that Germany and, to a lesser extent, France are in danger of dividing from the US and the UK, not only over how to respond to any future Russian act of aggression in Ukraine, but also in their assessment of the imminence of the threat.

Every effort is being made to minimise the differences within the Nato alliance, including through regular calls such as the one led by Joe Biden on Monday, but they may be impossible to avoid since they reflect not just different short-term assessments on intelligence, but a deep fissure going back decades about what Germany and France, as opposed to the Anglosphere, regard as the best way to handle Russia.

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Biden warns Russia of ‘enormous consequences’ if it invades Ukraine – live

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Staff turnover in the Biden administration is nowhere near what it was under Donald Trump, when senior aides came and went as through a revolving door in a hurricane.

Nonetheless, the press always likes a bit of speculation about who might be in and who might be out, and here comes the Washington Post with an exhaustive examination of how Ron Klain, Joe Biden’s chief of staff, has not had the smoothest first year in the job.

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US finalizing plans to divert gas to Europe if Russia cuts off supply

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Officials working with global suppliers to avoid European gas crisis if flow from Russia is cut as Biden says he would consider personal sanctions against Putin

The US has helped prepare for the diversion of natural gas supplies from around the world to Europe in the event that the flow from Russia is cut, in an effort to blunt Vladimir Putin’s most powerful economic weapon.

As fears of an invasion of Ukraine have grown, US officials said on Tuesday that they had been negotiating with global suppliers, and they were now confident that Europe would not suffer from a sudden loss of energy for heating in the middle of winter.

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Ukraine: US offers Putin summit with Biden in effort to stop slide to war

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Move comes amid ‘frank and substantive’ talks in Geneva and announcement by Russia of new military exercises

The US has offered to hold a summit between Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin as a last-ditch effort to stop the slide to a new war in Europe, as Russia continued to build up its forces along the Ukraine border and announced new naval exercises in the Black Sea.

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said Washington and its allies were also ready to respond in writing next week to Russian demands on the future of Nato and European security, which Moscow has said must be addressed to avoid it taking “military measures”. But, speaking in Geneva where he held talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, Blinken repeated the US and Nato position there could still be no compromise on the central issue of the right of Ukraine and other countries to join Nato in the future.

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Biden warns Russia will ‘pay a heavy price’ if Putin launches Ukraine invasion – as it happened

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Here’s where the day stands so far:

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Biden warns Russia will ‘pay heavy price’ if it invades Ukraine – video

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Joe Biden sought to clarify US policy on a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine after his remarks about how the Nato alliance might respond to a 'minor incursion' triggered alarm in Kyiv. Biden told reporters at the White House: 'If any assembled Russian units move across the Ukrainian border, that is an invasion. Let there be no doubt if Putin makes this choice, Russia will pay a heavy price'

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US accuses Russia of conspiring to take over Ukraine government

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Treasury imposes sanctions on four current and former Ukraine government officials it says involved in alleged conspiracy

The US has alleged that Russian intelligence is recruiting current and former Ukrainian government officials to take over the government in Kyiv and cooperate with a Russian occupying force.

The US Treasury on Thursday imposed sanctions on two Ukrainian members of parliament and two former officials it said were involved in the alleged conspiracy, which involved discrediting the current government of the president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

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Joe Biden thinks Russia will attack Ukraine – but will face a ‘stiff price’

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US president alarms government in Kyiv by saying Nato was divided on how to respond to ‘minor incursion’

Joe Biden has said he thinks Russia will attack Ukraine, warning that Moscow would face a “stiff price”, but he admitted Nato was divided on how to respond if there is only a “minor incursion”.

The White House was forced to issue a hasty clarification to that last point, saying that any movement of Russian forces over the border would be treated as invasion.

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What have Ukraine talks achieved, and is war now more likely?

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Russia calls talks a ‘dead end’ and it becomes clear that troop build-up is not a bluff to achieve other ends

The Guardian’s world affairs editor assesses the outcome of three rounds of talks this week about the fate of Ukraine, involving Russia, the US, Nato and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).

Did the talks achieve anything?

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Blinken says US stumped over Havana syndrome as more diplomats fall ill

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Secretary of state says officials do not know what illness is or who is responsible, with more sickness reported in Paris and Geneva

The United States still does not know what the illness known as Havana syndrome is or who is responsible for it, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said in an interview on Thursday after more American diplomats were reported ill in Paris and Geneva.

Blinken said the entire federal government is working to get to the bottom of the illness, which has afflicted about 200 US diplomats, officials and family members overseas.

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Nato chief warns of ‘real risk of conflict’ as talks with Russia over Ukraine end

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Moscow says relations with the alliance are at ‘critically low level’ with ‘no positive agenda at all’

Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has said there is “a real risk for a new armed conflict in Europe” after talks between alliance members and Russia ended with no signs of progress towards defusing the crisis over Ukraine. ”.

The Russian deputy foreign minister, Alexander Grushko, emerged from the four hours of talks renewing Moscow’s threat that it would take military steps if political measures were not enough to “neutralise the threats” it says it faces. His remarks came only days after his fellow Russian diplomat, Sergei Ryabkov, had assured reporters Russia had no intention of invading Ukraine.

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Russia’s belief in Nato ‘betrayal’ – and why it matters today

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The idea that the Soviet Union was tricked in 1989-90 is at the heart of Russia’s confrontation with the west

The current confrontation between Russia and the west is fuelled by many grievances, but the greatest is the belief in Moscow that the west tricked the former Soviet Union by breaking promises made at the end of the cold war in 1989-1990 that Nato would not expand to the east. In his now famous 2007 speech to the Munich Security Conference, Vladimir Putin accused the west of forgetting and breaking assurances, leaving international law in ruins.

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Ukraine talks: Russia sees no grounds for optimism ahead of Nato meeting

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Moscow’s chief negotiator played down chances of a breakthrough as Russian troops conduct live-fire exercise near Ukraine

The Kremlin has said it sees “no significant reason for optimism” about diplomatic solutions for the Ukraine crisis, ahead of a meeting in Brussels between Russia and Nato’s 30 member states.

As Moscow was playing down the chances for success at the negotiating table after initial US-Russian talks in Switzerland on Monday, Russian forces deployed near Ukraine conducted a live-fire military exercise involving 3,000 troops and tanks, in a clear rejection of US demands for a de-escalation in the region.

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Pacific faces ‘strategic surprise’, says US official, alluding to China

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US Indo-Pacific coordinator Kurt Campbell says bases and other agreements could be on the cards

The Pacific may be the part of the world most likely to see “strategic surprise”, the US Indo-Pacific coordinator Kurt Campbell has said, in comments apparently referring to possible Chinese ambitions to establish Pacific island bases.

Campbell told Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies that the United States has “enormous moral, strategic, historical interests” in the Pacific but had not done enough to assist the region, unlike countries such as Australia and New Zealand.

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US-Russia talks over Ukraine ‘useful’ but no progress made

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Diplomats stress they have not made progress towards resolving fundamental disagreements

US and Russian diplomats have emerged from a day of negotiations in Geneva over the fate of Ukraine, describing the talks as “useful” and “very professional” – but also stressing they had not made progress towards resolving fundamental disagreements.

The two sides largely spent the eight hours of talks presenting their points of view on the situation in Ukraine, currently hemmed in by some 100,000 Russian troops, and on European security in general, and deferred further debate on them to a meeting in Brussels on Wednesday between Russia and all Nato members.

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US tells Putin to choose confrontation or dialogue over Ukraine

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Secretary of state Tony Blinken says coming week of talks is moment of truth for Russian president

The US has told Vladimir Putin to choose between dialogue and confrontation on the eve of a critical week of diplomacy over Ukraine as Russian troops remained massed along its borders.

Senior diplomats and military officers from the US and Russia held a working dinner in Geneva on Sunday evening before Monday’s formal negotiations to discuss Moscow’s demands. Those were set out last month in two draft treaties, one with the US and one with Nato. Much of their content is unacceptable to Washington and the alliance, most importantly a pledge that Ukraine will never be a Nato member.

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Russia ‘very likely’ to invade Ukraine without ‘enormous sanctions’ – Schiff

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  • House intelligence chair: invasion might draw Nato closer
  • Sanctions must be ‘at level Russia has never seen’ to deter Putin

Russia is “very likely” to invade Ukraine and might only be deterred by “enormous sanctions”, the chair of the US House intelligence committee said on Sunday.

Adam Schiff also said an invasion could backfire on Moscow, by drawing more countries into the Nato military alliance.

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‘Tit for tat’: why hunt for Covid’s origins still mired in politics and controversy

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Scientific consensus absent as impasse between China and west continues to hamper tracing effort

Robert Garry, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Tulane medical school in Louisiana, got a call from his university management telling him that agents from the FBI and CIA had requested a chat about his research into the origins of Covid-19.

Garry agreed and on 30 July three agents flew down to Louisiana to talk to him in person.

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The Guardian view on Yemen: the forgotten war | Editorial

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Years of brutal conflict have brought misery to an already impoverished country. There is no end in sight

By the end of this year, the United Nations warned recently, 377,000 Yemenis will have died from seven devastating years of war – in many cases killed by indirect causes such as hunger; in others, by airstrikes or missile bombardments. Seventy per cent of the fatalities are thought to be children under five.

As 2021 began, there were hopes that Joe Biden’s arrival in the White House might bring progress towards peace. His administration quickly announced it was ending all support for offensive operations by Saudi Arabia, which spearheaded the US- and UK-backed coalition fighting for the internationally recognised government overthrown by Houthi rebels. It also revoked the Trump administration’s designation of the Houthis as a terrorist group. But Mr Biden’s team overestimated its ability to help resolve the crisis. The diplomatic push soon faltered. In October, Washington announced a $500m military contract with Riyadh which includes support for its attack helicopters, used in operations in Yemen.

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