It’s been six weeks since President Joe Biden’s videoconference with Russian leader Vladimir Putin over the crisis in Ukraine. Since then, Putin’s saber-rattling has only gotten louder.
The Kremlin has been moving troops and military equipment into Belarus, a faithful Moscow ally that borders Ukraine on the north. Moscow also has been reportedly emptying out its embassy in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv — a move perhaps meant to intimidate, perhaps meant to ready for a full-scale invasion. Ukrainian authorities fear Russian hackers have planted destructive malware in the country’s computer networks, and are waiting for the go-ahead to activate.
And ominously, Russian officials have hinted about shifting nuclear weapons to locations not far from the U.S. coastline — a prospect unnervingly reminiscent of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. “I don’t want to confirm anything or rule anything out,” Sergei Ryabkov, a Russian deputy foreign minister, answered when asked in Geneva whether the Kremlin was thinking about deploying military infrastructure in Cuba or Venezuela.
