The Biden administration is trying to put China into a corner over the Russia-Ukraine war.  It spread the rumor that Putin has asked China to provide military aide to Russia.  Biden supposedly warned that there will be consequences if China helps Russia.  China has denied that Russia asked for help and that China has not agree to give such help.  

The idea that Russia needs military help from China is not credible.  The U.S. makes 36% of arms in the world.  Russia is second with 21%.  China is around 5th with about 5%.  So for Russia, which is a big arms selling nation, to bow its head in shame to ask China for arms is ridiculous.  China has been saying that it is staying out of the fight.  The only shipments which China has made are for food, medical supplies and other aids to Ukraine.  The Ukraine government has said that China has been helpful in trying to get Putin to the table.  China is actually Ukraine's top trading partner.  But that seems to be glossed over by the Western media.  

People assume that China is on Russia's side, given Putin visited with Xi during the Olympics and they announced their friendship.  But while China wants Russia on its side in balancing power against the U.S., it does not want to see an example of a country taking over territory of another.  Territory integrity is important to China since Western countries want to break Xinjiang, Tibet, and Taiwan from China.  

China also does not war and sanctions to cripple the economy of the world which has helped China grow into an economic power.  The West demands that China join the sanction of Russia.  But why would China do that?  It does not believe that sanctions work and that even the West is taking its own economic well being into account in applying sanctions.  The West has kicked most Russian banks out of SWIFT but kept the banks that control oil trade in.  It has stopped short of banning all Russian energy products.  So why should China risk into own economic well being to help the West?  Only the U.S., Canada, Western Europe, Australia, South Korea and Japan are sanctioning Russia.  All of Latin America, most of Asia, including India, and all of Africa are not participating.  So 80% of the world population is not involve in sanctioning Russia.  Yet, only China is being singled out.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is asking Iran and Venezuela to increase oil production.  It is saying that sanctions against these countries will be lifted if they cooperate.  I don't know if they will take the bait but China is likely do what is to its best interest.  China does not want sanctions against it.  But sanctions may come in the future no matter what China does.  At least that is what a lot of Chinese believe.  I think they don't like Putin's aggressiveness.  But they don't see why they have to fall in line with the West.  As one Chinese pundit said: "They are asking us to help them fight against their enemies today so that they will be able to fight us later."  I think that is very grim.

 This is the 5th installment of the Russian Ukraine War.  I must say that after writing all these installments that I have not come up with the exact reason why Putin attack at this time.  Perhaps there are multiple factors.  The Time magazine article imply that the arrest of Putin's friend Medvedchuk may be the spark that started the war.  Maybe, but obviously there were many steps that led to the invasion.  So we look at some of these steps.

Georgia may have been a model of what could have happened to Ukraine.  As we talked about previously, Georgia and Ukraine were both going to be the next countries to join NATO.  But in 2008, Russia beat up Georgia and basically took over separatists regions of that country.  No talk of Georgia joining NATO after that.  So perhaps the West and Ukraine could have learned that lesson and just let Ukraine be neutral and avoid a similar or worse fate than Georgia.

But there didn't happen.  We left off with Russia annexing Crimea in 2014.  Russia also helped a separatist movement in the Donbas region of Ukraine.  Basically a civil war broke out in 2014.  It has never ended.  Couple of times there were cease fire but fighting resumed or never stop despite the agreements.  Ukraine refused to concede the separatist region and kept attacking periodically.  But it was not able to make any progress.  Putin, occupied with troubles at home and waging a war in Syria, did not help the separatists advance either.  So it was pretty much a stalemate until 2021.  

As mentioned Medvedchuk was arrested in 2021.  Also Ukraine started using Turkish made drones to attack the separatists.  These drones have been quite effective, even against Russian forces in the war today.  NATO was also more aggressive, flying near the Russian border.  Also Ukraine had since the Russian annexation of Ukraine, have shut off water from the North Crimean Canal which had supplied 90% of fresh water to Crimea in the past.  So the agriculture of Crimea suffered greatly and the Russians have been having more and more trouble trying to supply Crimea with fresh water.  In fact, one of the first things the Russians did after the invasion was blew up the dam that blocked the water going to Crimea.  So all these may have been factors that made Putin believe it was time to invade.

I also think that with the U.S. leaving Afghanistan in such a disgraceful manner gave Putin the idea that the U.S. cannot organize NATO in a  cohesive response.  Or he may have thought that Biden, having been humiliated with the withdrawal from Afghanistan, will want to show that he is tougher than Trump on Russia.  So maybe it was now or it will be too late once Biden gets things organized.  

So Putin tried to test Biden by asking that NATO put it in writing that Ukraine will never be part of NATO.  Biden, on the other hand, could not be looked upon as weak after Afghanistan, refused.  So both sides are pinned to a corner and the Ukrainians are going to be the big losers of this big power politics.

 This is the fourth installment of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.  Having annexed Crimea and backed the separatist movements in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, it seemed like Putin had stopped NATO from taking in Ukraine as a member.  While there were scrimmages in the following years, things seem to somewhat stabilize.  So what made Putin decide to invade?  There are views that he got bad intelligence reports and that made him believe that he can easily win.  There are views that he got bad advice from his inner circle.  But Putin is not Bush.  He is way too savvy to be led down the path by the Russian equivalents of Cheney, Rumsfeld and Neocons.  An interesting point was brought up in Time magazine Feb.14-21 issue.  This was something new I read and had not come across before.  So I will give a summary of this article.

The article talks about Viktor Medvedchuk, an Ukrainian oligarch and politician.  Medvedchuk and Putin are close friends.  Putin is the god-father of Medvedchuk's daughter.  According to Time, Medvedchuk's party is the biggest opposition force in the parliament of Ukraine.  He is the leading voice for Russian interests in Ukraine.  This is important since after the annexation of Crimea and taking over of the Donbas region, there are less and less pro-Russian people voted into the Kyiv government.  So short of going to war, the best way for Putin to influence Ukraine was through Medvedchuk and his party.

The U.S. was well aware of pro Russia oligarchs in Ukraine.  Many of them were sanctioned by Obama in 2014, and Medvedchuk was on the top of list of those sanctioned.   Nevertheless by 2018 these oligarchs had formed an alliance called Opposition Platform-For Life and Medvedchuk was the party chairman.  These oligarchs owned three television network in Ukraine.  They made life miserable for Zelensky's government, especially hammering its response to COVID.

So in February of 2021, shortly after Biden had taken office, Zelensky's government took the opposition television networks off air.  This was with the blessing of the Biden administration.  Shortly after that, Ukraine announced that it had seized the assets of Medvedchuk's family, including a pipeline that brings Russian oil to Europe.  In May, Medvedchuk was charged with treason and placed under house arrest.  Recently, the U.S. accused him of plotting to stage a coup, similar to what the Russians had accused the U.S. of doing back in 2014.

Putin responded by sending 3,000 troops to the Ukraine border right after Ukraine took his friend's assets.  That was the first of many moves that eventually led to over 100,000 troops to the border and then the invasion.  I don't know if Putin started the process of war because of what he felt as injustice to his friend.  But I do think that having his one big influencer in Ukraine silenced, he probably thought  that there was no path to keep Ukraine out of NATO short of war.  

 This is the third installment of what led to the invasion of Russia into Ukraine.  We left off with the intention of NATO admitting Ukraine and Georgia into their fold at the Summit in 2008.  At that Summit, the Bush administration wanted Ukraine and Georgia to be admitted over the protest of Putin.  But France and Germany were against the admission because they fear it will cause Russia to be aggressive.  So NATO decided to tabled the admission until December of that year.  

Georgia, believing that it has the support of the U.S., felt that NATO admission was only delayed but was inevitable.  Georgia had trouble in two of its regions:  Abkhazia and South Ossetia.  Now that Georgia thinks that NATO will admit it, it felt it can be more aggressive toward the Russian separatists movements in these two regions.  The Russians, on the other hand, wanted to show Georgia its displeasure of Georgia wanting to join NATO.  It encouraged the separatists movement in these two regions.  There were parallel joint military exercises at the same time.  One was Georgia and the U.S. and one was Russia and the separatists.  I don't know if Georgia attacked the separatists first or vice versa.  But Russia sent in "peacekeeping forces" (sound familiar today?).   Eventually, Russia recognized the separatists region as independent countries (also sound familiar today).  So a war broke out.  It is considered to be the first European war of the 21st century.

By this time Putin was not president any more due to term limits.  While he still pull the strings, he let Medvedev run the show.  Medvedev had no intention of occupying Georgia and so after pushing out the Georgian forces from the separatists regions, he accepted a cease fire.  As it is today, NATO and the U.S. wanted no part of actually fighting Russia and so the war ended.  While the majority of the world recognize the two regions as parts of Georgia, the reality is that both are run by Russians or people of Russian descent.  So you can say that Russia won.  Also given what happened in Georgia, there was no consideration of Ukraine joining NATO for several years after that.

Fast forward to 2010.  Viktor Yanukovych was elected as president of Ukraine.  While he was elected by winning the eastern part of the country where there were lots of people of Russian descent, he was considered a moderate candidate.  He called for neutrality for Ukraine.  He promised to work with both the European Union and Russia.  That was seen as reasonable.  But the country was not doing great economically and there were corruption charges against him.

Then in 2013 the European Union offered Ukraine membership.  Russia responded by offering loan to Ukraine.  Yanukovych decided against the EU offer.  This led to protests from those who wanted to be part of the European Union and NATO.  The protests turned violent.  There are some evidence that the West supported the protesters with money and strategy.  Yanukovych claimed that his life was being threatened.  There was proceeding for impeachment against him.  At this point Yanukovych fled to Crimea and eventually Russia.

So Russia then claim that Western interference with Ukraine is a threat against Crimea and Russia.  Crimea had been part of the Russian Empire starting 1783.  But in 1954, the USSR transferred Crimea to the jurisdiction of Ukraine in commemoration of the 300th anniversary of Ukraine's union with Russia.  So to Putin, it was quite reasonable to take back Crimea since the coup means Ukraine will likely end up in EU and NATO.  Also the Sevastopol Naval Base in Crimea on the Black Sea is very important to Russia.  So there was no way that Putin will allow that to become a NATO base.   With a Russian majority in Crimea, it was not difficult for Putin to send in troops and annexed Crimea.

 This is the second installment of the Ukraine crisis and how we got to this tragedy.  We left off with the breakup of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact and there was nothing Russia could do about it.  By the time Putin was in his first term as president of Russia, only Georgia and Ukraine were not part of NATO.  Putin was very popular during his first two terms from 2000 to 2008.  He talked about reforms, getting rid of corruption, making law and order a priority.  That is not too different from politicians anywhere.  He did hint at regaining the old glory of the Soviet Union, at least no more NATO advances.  He was tough on the Chechnya rebels.  But luck was also on his side.  While Russia's GDP plummeted after the breakup of the USSR, oil prices skyrocketed during Putin's first two terms.  While the average Russians felt that changing to capitalism made things worse, now they felt having a strongman like Putin is why things are better.

Putin took advantage of the situation.  He jailed some oligarchs and took away their wealth.  He told the people that changing to the West system was terrible, that it was all these capitalists who were stealing from Russia.  Of course, he let those oligarchs who are on his side to keep and continue to make money.  It was not difficult to make a case of the West trying to kick Russia when it is down.  NATO is a military alliance.  What is the purpose of adding countries like Poland, Hungary and the Baltic states to their membership?  These countries don't provide much military might to NATO.  There are no Asian, African or American countries who threaten Europe.  So it was easy to reason that the whole purpose of adding these countries is to threaten Russia or at least embarrass it by surrounding it.  This was an easy sell to the Russian people.  And with the economy improving due to oil sales, Putin's approval rating was sky high.

It could be argue that ambition of Putin to get Russia back to the glory days of the USSR will eventually  lead to war sometime down the line.  But the actions of NATO certainly did not help and some would argue that it led to what is happening today.  In a NATO summit in 2008, NATO announced that Ukraine and Georgia would eventually be admitted into NATO.  That would be a line in the sand for Putin.  There was no way that he could have kept his strongman image and let NATO admit those two, particularly Ukraine.  

It is easy to paint Putin as evil and Russia is bad.  But things are never black and white like that.  Russians are no different than any other people.   They want a better life for their family.  They have pride in their nation.  So if anyone can show that others are humiliating or threatening them and at the same time provide them with a better standard of living, they are going to follow that person.  The West was kicking Russia when it was down but at the same time craved the oil that Russia can provide cheaply.  So it can be said that the West actually help the rise of Putin to the detriment of the world.

So what happens to Georgia and Ukraine was fairly predictable, given what happened in that NATO summit and the ambition of Putin.  Next will go over what happened after that summit and eventually the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014.

 The war in Ukraine has started.  While it is easy to say this is all the doing of a madman, a brutal dictator or a thug, it would not be totally true.  Putin is all of the above but if we ignore the history that led to all of this, then we are likely to repeat this type of tragedies over and over again.  I am no historian and some of the facts I recall may not be 100% accurate.  I am also writing this as I am thinking about it and so I don't know how many blogs is going take me.  Hopefully this is coherent.

The USSR and the U.S. were allies in WWII along with Western Europe.  Post war the two sides went separate ways.  Just like we were proud of winning the war, the Soviets were proud of their victory.  The U.S. and the Soviets built the two biggest military powers in the world.  Unfortunately, they were no longer allies as they represent two opposite systems.  Both wish to destroy the other's system, believing that they would suffer if the other side wins.  The Soviets were able to match the Americans militarily but they failed miserably economically.  So unlike what Reagan supporters believe, we didn't win the Cold War due to strength.  We won because the USSR self-destructed economically.

So Gorbachev decided to make peace with the West.  The Soviets were going to change their system and try to imitate the West with the help of the West.  Gorbachev believed that if Germany and Japan can rise from the ashes of their defeat in WWII with the help of the West, surely the USSR can do the same.  But the help he needed never came.  Left on its own with poor leaders like Yeltsin, corruption within the government and no previous experience with capitalism, only a few oligarchs became rich.  The rest of the country became even more poor.

So the USSR started to break up.  The Warsaw Pact also collapsed.  The economically weak Russia could not do much to stop the bleeding.  By the time the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania left the bloc, there wasn't much left except for Ukraine and Georgia.

Ukraine was the closest of the former Soviet Republics to Russia.  There were and still are many Russians in Ukraine.  Most people in Ukraine can speak Russian.  Also we look at the map, you can draw a straight line from England to France to Germany to Poland to Ukraine to Russia.  Once Poland became part of the EU, Ukraine is the only buffer between Russia and NATO.  So you can see why Ukraine is so important to Russia.  Before the breakup, Ukraine actually had the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world.  When the deal was made to breakup,  Ukraine wanted continue Russian support and gave back the nuclear weapons.  

Ukraine, however, was split two factions.  Those west side of the country tended to favor Europe but the east side favor Russia.  Meanwhile the EU was snapping up all the countries west of Ukraine.  The EU wanted these countries to join so they can station troops and missile close to Russia, so the Russians reasoned.  The Western Europeans would say that they just want to spread democracy and improve the economic status of the Eastern European countries.  You can be the judge of who is right on this.  I would say that some of these countries are democratic in name only.  Economically, most of them are better off than when the Soviets dominated them but they are not anywhere near Western European level.  I think by incorporating them into the EU, Western Europe just got a source of cheap labor, something the Brits missed out since Brexit.

Well, I digress and getting tired so I will stop for now.  Next will go over how Putin's view on this and how he used it to his advantage and eventually took Crimea.

 Now that the Winter Olympics are over, I will give some final thoughts. 

China, as expected, did a great job of hosting and putting on a show.  Also expected, it got the "but" review from western media.  That is, the media will say things went well, but....For example NYT:  China Celebrates a Joyless Triumph.  USA Today:  The most controversial, most unwelcoming Olympics of our lifetime are now over.  So there were many articles such that nobody got COVID from the Olympics so China deserves credit but there was no fun, no interactions, too much trouble for the journalists etc.

But there were many accounts by athletes of them having great times and impressed with the Beijing organization.  Aaron Blunck, an American skier, praised China during a news conference saying what he read before coming here seems to be false.  Shortly after, he reported that his twitter account was suspended.  He thought that it was because his comments about China.  But the account was restored shortly afterward so I think it was most likely a glitch, not an American government effort to limit his speech as some in the Chinese media pointed out.

Only about five countries joined the American diplomatic boycott.  Then the U.S. requested dozens of diplomat passes to the Games.  I don't know why they requested them if you are boycotting.  I am sure the countries that follow our lead wonder too.  Why do the diplomats need to be there?  Maybe they are security forces to protect American athletes since Nancy Pelosi is worried about their safety if they speak out against China!  It seems that the American athletes only have nice things to say.  And even if they don't, China is not stupid enough to harm them when the whole world is watching.  I think Pelosi have more important things than that to worry about in our own country.

Eileen Gu won two gold and one silver, becoming the biggest star for China.  People are calling her traitor or at least asking if she is still American.  Bill Maher said that it is not racist to ask if she is still an American.  Well, he and others did not ask if Zoe Atkin, an American competing in the same event as Gu, is still an American after she represented Britain in Beijing because her father was born in Britain.  Nobody is asking if Kailee Humphries, the two time gold medalists for Canada but won a gold for the U.S. in Beijing, is still a Canadian.  There are many instances of athletes representing a country that is not where they were born or live.  Nobody ever question their loyalty except for Gu.  So you tell me if this is racist or sinophobia.

As an aside, Bill Maher also criticized John Cena for apologizing to his Chinese fans in Mandarin (he speaks Mandarin very well) because he mistakenly called Taiwan a country.  Well, Maher should know that Taiwan is not recognized by about 190 countries in this world as a nation, including the U.S.  So Cena is right and Maher should apologize to Cena.

The figure skating controversy is very sad.  The Russian girl is 15.  I am sure she didn't take those medication by choice.  She would have no idea what they are.  The risk vs benefit is very high.  It would be malpractice for any doctor to prescribe these for a young girl.  Whoever put her up to it should be in jail.  So the name changes from the USSR to the Unified Team to Olympic Athlete of Russia to ROC but the cheating continues.  Not only that, you see how the coaches treat the girls with whole world watching.  I can't imagine what they do to them in training when nobody is watching.

Mikaela Shiffrin is a class act.  After a disastrous Olympic, she talked to the press with politeness and humility without blaming anyone or feeling sorry for herself.  I am sure she will bounce back and continue her path of becoming the GOAT.

I will stop now but lets see how the press coverage for Italy in 2026 will go.  During the first big wave of COVID in 2020, Italy was suffering the worst.  It had to go to complete lockdown, same as China at that time.  The New York Times, on the same day, published articles on the two countries' response.  The Chinese effort was labeled draconian.  The Italian effort was hailed as heroic.  Need I say more?

 I am not a big fan of the Winter Olympics.  I can't really get into watching most of the sports.  I did watch some figure skating over the weekend.  I felt very bad for Zhu Yi, the American born as Beverly Zhu, who is now skating for China.  She did very poorly in the team event, falling badly in both the short and long programs.  She has been blasted in Chinese social media.  Many are questioning why an American is taking the only woman figure skating spot on the Chinese team ahead of a Chinese born skater.  Worse, some question if she failed on purpose because she is not really Chinese.

I find these attacks on Zhu horrifying.  First of all, if China had someone better, their Olympic leaders certainly would not have chosen Zhu.  Somehow after Lu Chen had won the world championships about twenty years ago, China has not produce another female skater that is able to compete for the podium.  I thought back then that there would have been a wave of female skater who would dominate the world.  If the U.S. can produce a Michelle Kwan, why wouldn't China produce several of them?  So there must be problems in their system that they have nobody stepping up now.  Zhu, obviously was not among the top American women so she decided to represent China.  She was not expected to medal.  But in trying too hard to show that she belong on the Chinese team, she stumbled badly.  She does not deserve such hatred.  If the Chinese people think that Zhu does not belong, then they should question their own Olympic leaders to see why they have failed.

Having seen what has happened to Zhu, I really worry about another American who is representing China, Eileen Gu.  Gu is in three events in freestyle skiing.  Unlike Zhu, Gu is a strong contender to medal.  She is dubbed the snow princess in China.  If they get mad at Zhu for failing, can you imagine what they will say about Gu if she fails to medal?

 Novak Djokovic is now officially out of the Australian Open and has left the country.  There was incompetence and confusion on the part of the Australian government but ultimately it was the right final decision.  Nobody is above the law, no matter the wealth or celebrity status of the person.

Serbia and all the anti-vaxxers are of course dismayed at the ruling.  They said it was unfair because if the provincial government had not accept Djokovic's application for exemption, he would not have gone to Australia in the first place.  But to me, there was something fishy about what Djokovic did.  He knew he was not vaccinated and so needed an exemption.  His request for exemption was that he had COVID already.  But he got a positive test on Dec. 16 or 17.  How did he know that he would get infected then or any time after?  At that late date, he would not have enough time to get two shots before going to Australia.  So the only way was to get infected to get an exemption.  So if he did not get infected, he would not have gone to Australia to defend his title?

Djokovic then was seen in public without masks at least couple of times right after the positive test result.  He is either extremely irresponsible, which should give Australia pause of admitting him in any case, or the test result was faked!  He was not going to get vaccinated because he is anti-vax.  So did he planned to get infected or get a fake medical result to get an exemption?

So to me the whole thing smell fishy and so I think Australia ultimately did the right thing by banning him.  You cannot ask the whole population to sacrifice and then let somebody from another country flaunt the rules.  

I do think that Djokovic should not be banned for 3 years because he was deported as some in Australia have suggested.  That would be unfair because Australia shared some responsibility for giving him an exemption initially.  If it didn't, then Djokovic would not have flied to Australia and thus would not be subject to deportation.  So the 3 year ban rule should not be enforced here.

 Shortly after Jan.6 last year, I thought that the power Trump over the Republican party was over.  When Republican members of Congress were scared stiff from the riot and leaders such as Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell said that Trump was responsible, you would think that the Trump era was over.  Now a year later, claims of election fraud continues, Republicans are saying that it was not a riot at all.  Nobody from the Republican side, except for a few people like Liz Cheney, mention that Trump is at fault for the insurrection.  Nothing from McCarthy and McConnell.

Only Liz Cheney and her father Dick Cheney among Republicans showed up to honor the Capitol police and remember the day.  Nothing from Mitt Romney.  Nothing from Mike Pence whom the rioters want to hang.  The prospect of elections not certified or riots post election are as real today or even more so compared to last year.  Our democracy is in big danger.  If we don't have peaceful transfer of power, do we really have a democracy?