09/26/2023
If you were still down in that, we are actually at war, with Russia, consider the following:
Austin said in Poland after returning from Ukraine.
Blinken conjured a long-term future that must have antagonized the strongman in the Kremlin, saying there would be an independent, sovereign Ukraine "a lot longer than there's going to be a Vladimir Putin."
The US backed up its new strategic clarity by gathering key global defense ministers in Germany and committing to monthly meetings to assess the needs of the government in Kyiv.
These moves fueled a growing sense that the war in Ukraine will not end any time soon. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Thursday that the war could "drag on and last for months and years."
Truss, meanwhile, urged for an expansion of US and Western military aid to guard against Russian expansionism -- calling for the arming of nations in the Western Balkans and non-NATO states Georgia and Moldova.
Russia responded to the stiffened Western strategy by taking its own steps to widen the footprint of the conflict, cutting off natural gas exports to Poland and Bulgaria after they refused to join its sanctions-evading scheme to pay their bills in rubles. A further widening of energy warfare could pitch Europe into recession.
The cataclysmic global consequences of the war were meanwhile underscored when the World Bank warned of the worst commodities shock in 50 years. Russia and Ukraine are key producers of coal, oil, natural gas and cooking oils, and the budgets of millions of people around the world are going to take a hit. The likely failure of this summer's harvest in Ukraine -- a major source of wheat and corn for the world -- could send food prices into a new inflationary spiral and fuel greater food insecurity. In the US, higher prices could have big impact on the midterm elections in November.
Biden ended a week that reshaped the world by unveiling an extraordinary $33 billion request to Congress for weapons, economic support and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, warning, "The cost of this fight is not cheap."
(CNN) — This was the week when the war in Ukraine truly transitioned from one nation's bloody fight for liberation against Russia's vicious onslaught to a...
