Ukraine Must Be A Really Pesky Place

It seems like there's more and nore -- or maybe less and less, dependiong on how you look at it -- to the whole Ukraine kabuki:

President Joe Biden's failure to nominate an ambassador to Ukraine more than a year into his presidency is raising concerns among U.S. officials and regional experts as Russia moves closer to launching a full-scale invasion.

"President Biden has undermined the U.S.-Ukraine relationship by failing to even nominate an ambassador to Ukraine—it is a dereliction of duty and contributes to the instability we're seeing unfold today," Rep. Mike Rogers (R., Ala.), ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee, told the Washington Free Beacon.

. . . Regional experts say diplomacy through social media is not helping the tense situation. A qualified American ambassador would have been able to reassure Zelensky in person and prevent a public disagreement with the White House that many saw as a boon for Russia.

"It is a horrible time for the United States to not have a Senate-confirmed ambassador in Kyiv," said Brad Bowman, a former Senate defense adviser who serves as senior director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies' Center on Military and Political Power. "A year into the Biden administration, there is zero excuse for the White House's failure to nominate someone."

"Deputy chiefs of mission can be incredibly effective, but there is simply no substitute for an ambassador," Bowman said, adding that "the Senate can be slow in confirming nominees, but you can't blame the Senate if you haven't even nominated someone. This borders on diplomatic malpractice by the Biden administration."

I can actually think of one very good reason President Brandon wouldn't want to nominate an ambassador to Ukraine: Senate confirmation would be an invitation to open the Hunter can of worms, since Ukraine was a major funnel for payments to the Biden family, and as far as anyone can tell, both Hunter and the big guy had extensive involvement with policy there while the big guy was vice president. Well, son of a bitch!

The guy doesn't want to touch Ukraine, period, and it sounds as if the current regime there has no particular affection for the Biden family, either. It's likely in his personal and poltical interest simply to have Ukraine go away, not least because since Bill Clinton in 1998, we've had no fewer than three bogus "impeachments" by both parties, which are doing nothing but taking impeachment off the table as a remedy for actual high crimes and misdemeanors.

The problem for Biden is that the US Constitution does specify that the “President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States” shall be removed from office if convicted in an impeachment trial of “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” Not hanky-pank in the oval office bathroom, not someone's interpretation of who said what to whom, but, er, bribery, for instance.

Biden would basically just like Ukraine to go away. The problem is that, while it suits Putin to have it destabilized for now, and indeed, Biden is playing into his hands by working to destabilize it, it likely isn't in Putin's interest to stage a full invasion. There's too much value to him for the time being in having a Ukrainian regime that feels threatened more by Biden than by Putin and likely has ammunition against Biden it has yet to expend.

One thing we can be pretty sure of -- Putin will still be around long afer Biden. He'll deal with Ukraine at his leisure, but he won't interfere while his enemy is destroying himself now.