A press availability yesterday by Secretary of State Tony Blinken, which largely consisted of a hysterical diatribe against Russia and President Vladimir Putin, suggests that Blinken may be reacting to the fact that the old paradigm to which the U.S. and its Western allies are so attached may actually be fading away. While Western nations cling to the “rules- based order,” other nations are seeking new diplomatic alliances, expanding regional cooperation and shaping alternative financial mechanisms for credit issuance and trade—often with Russia and China. Blinken was particularly irate about Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s recent very successful tour of four African nations which welcomed him warmly.
The ostensible purpose of the press availability was for Blinken to announce that he’d be speaking to Lavrov “in the coming days” to discuss a “substantial” U.S. proposal to exchange two Americans he claimed had been “wrongfully detained” by Russia, Paul Whelan and Brittney Griner, for one or two Russians being held in the United States. As of this morning, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there had been no such agreements to this effect and had nothing more to say on the subject.
Blinken dedicated the rest of his remarks to insisting that the world order is the way the U.S. and its allies say it is—that Putin is losing the war in Ukraine, that he seeks only to annex territory, that NATO is more united than ever and will continue to provide “democratic” Ukraine with all the weapons it needs. He made a point of referring to the recently-signed, UN-brokered grain deal with Russia and Ukraine as only “tentative,” because Russia can’t be trusted to respect it. “There’s a difference between a deal on paper and a deal in practice,” he intoned.
