So Much Happening, So Little News

It's a holiday weekend in the US on top of the Super Bowl, so naturally Biden's handlers are sending cryptic messages about how Putin may or may not be ready to invade Ukraine. The one person who doesn't seem to be bothered is Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“The Ukrainians presented a very hard position,” said Russian envoy Dmitry Kozak, noting that it was impossible to reconcile conflicting interpretations of an accord, known as the Minsk agreements, designed to halt the fighting between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed separatists.

. . . On Thursday, Kozak chided the Europeans for failing to bring Ukraine into compliance.

“My impression was that the Western diplomacy had no impact on the Ukrainian position in the talks,” Kozak said.

The mood in Washington seems strangely disconnected:

“There is a credible prospect that a Russia military action would take place even before the Olympics,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said at the daily briefing.

The Winter Olympic Games are currently underway in Beijing and end on February 20.

Sullivan shared his more alarming assessment of the situation in Ukraine with the press as President Joe Biden prepared to leave for the weekend to the Camp David presidential retreat.

He said he could not pinpoint the day or the hour of a potential invasion and admitted he did not know of the scope of the invasion, either.

“It could be more limited, it could be more expansive, but there are very real possibilities that it will involve the seizure of a significant amount of territory in Ukraine and the seizure of major cities, including the capital city,” he said.

Or maybe not. Doesn't sound like this guy, who's got the latest intelligence, knows any more than anyone else, especially if he doesn't seem to be aware that the Olympics have already started.

Meanwhile, Canadian police may or may not be clearing the truckers' blockade from the Ambassador Bridge, and other police may or may not be crackng down on the demonstrators in Ottawa. The impression I have from Canada is that Trudeau has been largely AWOL throughout the crisis.

We likely won't hear much before the middle of next week. The less anyone does about anything in the meantime, the better.