The Atlantic

Only Putin Knows What Happens Next

He alone can make the choice to bring Europe back from the brink of a major war.
Source: Mikhail Svetlov / Getty

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If Russian President Vladimir Putin isn’t about to invade Ukraine—or, more accurately, isn’t about to expand his previous invasion—he’s certainly making a good show of it.

Russian military forces have been moving into position for weeks. Russia and Belarus announced snap exercises that will continue for at least a month. President Joe Biden says he is expecting an invasion, and there are reports that the U.S. embassy in Kyiv is planning to evacuate families and nonessential personnel. Some NATO members are stepping up military aid and assistance. The British government says it has outed a Russian scheme to topple the government in Kyiv and replace it with Russian stooges (probably in the hope that exposing the plan will foil it).

If this isn’t the setup for a massive Russian invasion, it’s a damn good dress rehearsal.

Through all of this, the Biden administration has cycled through every combination

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