Intentionally or not, President Joe Biden keeps giving Russian thugocrat Vladimir Putin reason to think he can get away with slicing off a chunk of Ukraine.
He did it again this week, under the guise of emphasizing NATO’s unity against Putin’s atrocity-packed invasion. The alliance, the prez declared, has been “sending an unmistakable message to Putin: He will never succeed in dominating and occupying all of Ukraine.”
All of Ukraine, Biden specified — clearly implying that the allies will accept Russia conquering part of the country.
Putin will surely see that as reason to think he can indeed grab the energy-rich Donbas region, plus the area around already-leveled Mariupol — which is exactly what bloody Vlad this week implicitly set as his current aim, now that the Ukrainians have defeated his bid to capture the whole nation.
This follows Biden’s pre-war “warning” to Putin where Joe suggested the alliance might well do nothing if Russia only took a piece (well, another piece, since it grabbed Crimea back when Biden was vice president) of the country.
Yes, there are limits to what the West will do to counter Putin. But it sure would be nice if the US president would stop hinting that the tyrant can get away with conquering Ukraine one chunk at a time.