Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is trying to manipulate Washington, and the US government has been forced to take a number of overt and behind-the-scenes actions in recent weeks when it feels Kiev’s actions escalate tensions with Moscow to dangerous levels, famed neocon columnist David Ignatius has suggested.
“Zelensky has the power of a brave, charismatic leader to pressure his superpower patron into actions that might not be in the United States’ interests. The Biden administration has tried to strike a balance between strong military support for Ukraine and avoiding anything that might trigger a direct Russian-American conflict,” Ignatius, known as privileged reporter for the US security state who was outed in 2018 for being fed stories by the CIA, wrote in a recent op-ed.
Ignatius pointed to a series of actions taken by Washington to defuse Russia-US tensions, including CIA director William Burns’ meeting with Russian Foreign Intelligence Service chief Sergei Naryshkin on Monday to keep channels of communication open.
Secondly, Ignatius indicated, in the aftermath of the Poland missile strike on Tuesday, instead of blaming Russia and triggering NATO’s Article 5 on collective defense, the Biden administration “cooled down” tensions, first by admitting that it “lacked reliable information” on who was responsible, and then acknowledging, together with Poland, that the missile was Ukrainian.
During the missile crisis, Zelensky immediately blamed Moscow, and called for immediate NATO action, asking the West to “put the terrorist in its place.” Kiev has yet to offer condolences to Poland over the two civilians killed by the stray missile, and Zelensky said recently that he's still unsure of the details.
Washington also took other actions to “push back” when it felt Ukrainian actions were “too risky, or too rigid,” according to Ignatius, from the curious New York Times piece in October citing US intelligence admitting Ukrainian agents were responsible for the car bombing murder of Russian journalist Daria Dugina, to comments by US officials to media this month asking Zelensky to drop his iron-clad ban on talking to Moscow.
Ignatius’ op-ed in The Washington Post is not insignificant, as it serves as a recognition in a major mainstream media resource of a fact Russian officials have been warning about all along: that American support for Kiev risks escalating the Ukrainian security crisis into World War III.
The Washington Post is one of two US newspapers known to constitute the pinnacle of the propaganda arm of the US military-industrial complex and the deep state. Ignatius, who has spent decades rubbing shoulders with intelligence agencies, Congress, and the Justice Department, has also made a name for himself cheerleading every act of US military aggression abroad over the last quarter century, from Yugoslavia and Afghanistan to Iraq, Libya, and Syria. In 2019, he was revealed to be a privileged reporter fed stories by the CIA which the agency wants publicized. Russia slapped an entry ban on Ignatius in April.