Author: Frank V. Vernuccio, Jr.

A locked room in a basement may not be an authorized location, but it’s certainly more secure than any of the locations where the Biden documents have been discovered.  In fact, investigators went to Mar-A-Lago, saw where the documents were stored, and only suggested that a lock be placed on the door.  This potentially could be deemed a tacit authorization of the location where Trump was storing these documents.

In fact, the unsecured and unauthorized nature of the Biden home in Wilmington is underscored by the activities of the President’s son, Hunter; “President Biden’s formerly crack-addicted son described spending four days inside his father’s 6,850-square-foot residence with other family members as they awaited the results of the 2020 presidential election…(he) described the family ‘curled up on the couch together’ with other relatives ‘filtering in and out’ as returns trickled in…Hunter…added that his parents weren’t even home when the networks finally called the election for his father.”

Further, “(p)hotographs from 2017 obtained from Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop show the president’s son in the driver’s seat of his father’s 1967 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray convertible, which the president says was kept in a ‘locked garage’ alongside classified documents from his time as vice president.”

There is one other argument that stands in former President Trump’s favor; his power to declassify documents while serving as President. According to the American Bar Association “Most national security legal experts dismissed the former president’s suggestion that he could declassify documents…(b)ut…legal guidelines support his contention that presidents have broad authority to formally declassify most documents that are not statutorily protected, while they are in office.”

While the ABA also asserts that “(i)n all cases…a formal procedure is required so governmental agencies know with certainty what has been declassified,” there is little legal authority to support this view.  The one case cited by the ABA, New York Times v. CIA, states that “(d)eclassification cannot occur unless designated officials follow specified procedures.” However, the President of the United States, and a “designated official” are not necessarily the same.  In fact, as the ABA admits, “the extent of a president’s legal authority to unilaterally declassify materials — without following formal procedures — has yet to be challenged in court.”

As discussed in The Hill,  “it would be wrong to simply dismiss Trump’s assertion…Presidents have long claimed the authority to classify materials by dint of the president being the nation’s chief executive and commander in chief – the only official vested under Article II of the Constitution with ‘the executive power.’ Any other official involved in classifying materials does so, it is argued, because the president has delegated that authority to that official. And because the president has the underlying power to classify, he has by implication the unilateral authority to declassify.”

Whether Biden, as Vice President, could have declassified the documents found in his possession is not as clear-cut; “A March 2003 executive order signed by President George W. Bush empowered the vice president to classify sensitive materials. That same executive order grants declassification powers to ‘the official who authorized the original classification’ or ‘a supervisor official.’ Under the executive order, vice presidents are granted the power to declassify documents they classified themselves. But it’s unclear if the vice president would be viewed as ‘a supervisory official’ with the ability to declassify sensitive documents from the CIA and other intelligence agencies. That leaves it muddled whether a vice president can declassify documents.” 

In any event, Biden doesn’t claim he declassified anything.  Instead, “President Biden said...he was ‘surprised’ to learn…that his lawyers found classified government documents in his former office at a think tank in Washington, and he said he does not know what information they contain.” 

Apparently, Joe Biden has never heard another old adage – “Ignorance of the law is no excuse.”

Judge John Wilson (ret.) served on the bench in NYC

Illustration: Pixabay

As we discussed at the time of the Mar-A-Lago raid, “(u)nder 18 USC 2071(a), ‘Whoever willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, or destroys, or attempts to do so, or, with intent to do so takes and carries away any record…document, or other thing, filed or deposited…in any public office, or with any judicial or public officer of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.’”   Further, “(u)nder 18 USC 1924(a), ‘(w)hoever, being an officer, employee, contractor, or consultant of the United States, and, by virtue of his office, employment, position, or contract, becomes possessed of documents or materials containing classified information of the United States, knowingly removes such documents or materials without authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than five years, or both.’”

There is no “it’s only a couple of pages” defense, nor is there a “private-office space” distinction from a “personal home” in either of these statutes.  In fact, as Sky News admits, it is irrelevant how many documents are involved, or where they were kept.  Possession of the documents outside of a secured location itself is the crime.

Therefore, we are left with intent as the crucial issue. But the legal standard for “willfully and unlawfully…removes” and “intent to retain such documents…at an unauthorized location” is not the same as the dictionary definition of those words.  As we discussed in our review of Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified materials, “to be found guilty of a violation of (these laws), you do not need to have intended to break the law – you need to have intended to retain the classified documents ‘at an unauthorized location.’ As discussed by Anthony Christina in the Penn State Law Review,  ‘(t)o convict Clinton, it must be shown that she had knowledge that classified emails were contained on her private server. The most recent total by the State Department of their review of 30,000 Clinton emails indicates that at least 671 emails sent or received by Clinton contained classified information…(t)he conclusion is inescapable – if a ‘reasonable person’ would know that almost 700 emails were classified, and had no place on an unsecured server, it would not be hard to establish that then-Secretary Clinton intended  ‘to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location.’”

To understand this distinction, let’s review several cases where the Justice Department has prosecuted people for mishandling classified materials.

Earlier this year, “(a) former civilian employee of the Defense Department was sentenced…to three months in prison after admitting to taking materials containing classified information to her hotel room and to her personal residence…(t)he ex-Defense Department employee…Asia Janay Lavarello, was on a temporary assignment at the US Embassy in Manilla when she took classified documents from the embassy to her hotel room, according to court filings. She hosted a dinner party at her hotel on the day she removed the documents, March 20, 2020, and an embassy co-worker in attendance found the documents, which had classified markings on them, according to the court filings…The documents she took home were three…classified theses, her lawyer told CNN, and she had no intention of transmitting the classified information or of harming the United States.”

In 2013, “(r)etired Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Pierce Bishop was arrested in Hawaii and charged with one count of unlawfully retaining documents related to the national defense…Court papers alleged Bishop, who was working for a defense contractor, stored 12 documents containing classified information at his residence.”

Then there is this case we described in an earlier article; “On April 23,(2015, General David) Petraeus pled guilty to a single misdemeanor charge of unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or materials under 18 USC §1924…(i)nstead of turning his journals — so-called ‘black books’ – over to the Defense Department or CIA when he left either of those organizations, Petraeus kept them at his home – an unsecure location – and provided them to his paramour/biographer, Paula Broadwell, at another private residence.’ (For more detail on the Petraeus case, read here)  Did Gen. Petraeus ‘intend to break the law?’  No – but he did intend to retain classified documents at an unsecured location, and fail to keep them secure.” 

In each of these cases, it did not matter whether the defendant kept the classified documents in a private residence, a hotel, or any other location.  The fact that the location was not authorized is the key factor. 

Thus, it doesn’t matter whether Biden kept those documents in his garage, his residence, or an office at the University of Pennsylvania.  It matters that all of those places are “unauthorized location(s).”

Further, the number of documents is equally irrelevant.  Lt Colonel Bishop only had 12 documents; Ms Lavarello had 3; yet both still faced criminal prosecution.

Most important, however, intent does not mean, “I purposely broke the law.”  It means you intended to remove the documents from an authorized location, and kept them at an unauthorized location.  Like your office at the University of Pennsylvania.  Or your garage, next to your Corvette.  Or your residence.

In this regard, Trump may actually have a better argument in his behalf than Biden.  According to CNN, “(i)n early June, a handful of investigators made a rare visit to the property seeking more information about potentially classified material from Trump’s time in the White House that had been taken to Florida..the investigators asked the attorneys if they could see where Trump was storing the documents. The attorneys took the investigators to the basement room where the boxes of materials were being stored, and the investigators looked around the room before eventually leaving,..Five days later, on June 8, Trump’s attorneys received a letter from investigators asking them to further secure the room where the documents were stored. Aides subsequently added a padlock to the room.” 

The Article Concludes Tomorrow

Judge John Wilson (ret.) served on the bench in NYC

Illustration: Pixabay

(Note: As this article was being prepared, even more documents were found in Biden’s inappropriate possession.)

On August 8, 2022, the FBI executed a search warrant at the Florida residence of former President Donald Trump. At the time, Trump stated “My beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents.”   The search was intended to recover documents housed at Trump’s residence that the National Archives claimed did not belong in the former President’s hands.

Apparently, a series of documents labeled “classified” were recovered from Mar-A-Lago pursuant to the search. 

Current President Joe Biden wasted no time in criticizing his predecessor.  “When it emerged President Trump had so many top secret documents in his possession, Biden asked: ‘…how that could possibly happen? How anyone could be that irresponsible? What data may be in there that may compromise sources and methods?'”

Perhaps Joe Biden never heard the phrase, “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”

On November 2, 2022,  “President Biden’s personal attorneys unexpectedly discover(ed) Obama-Biden administration records at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, and notif(ied) the National Archives.”  On December 20, 2022, “Biden’s personal attorneys inspect(ed) (the) garage at the president’s Wilmington (Delaware) home and identif(ied) a ‘small number’ of potential classified records.” Then, on January 11, 2023, “Biden’s personal attorneys search(ed) the president’s homes in Wilmington and Rehoboth Beach for additional records. They locate a potential record with classified markings in a room adjacent to the garage.”

The documents recovered from these offices and residences appear to date from Biden’s time as Vice-President.

“People close to the White House say there is currently a mood of quiet resignation among Biden aides – an ‘It is what it is’ mentality – as they, too, wait to learn if news of more misplaced classified documents will surface in the coming days…Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow said the discovery of the classified documents was ‘certainly embarrassing’ for Biden. ‘It’s one of those moments that, obviously, they wish hadn’t happened,’ Stabenow said on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press.’”

“It is what it is?”  “Certainly embarrassing?” “Wish hadn’t happened?”

Compare these understatements from Biden supporters with the rock thrown through Biden’s glass house by Peter Doocy of Fox News after the second batch of documents were found in Biden’s garage – “Classified materials next to your Corvette? What were you thinking?”  All Biden could answer was “that the garage had been locked and that he took the proper handling of classified documents seriously.”

Other than Doocy’s direct question, the rest of the media has been very understanding of Biden’s incompetent handling of classified materials.  According to “Scott Amey, general counsel for the Project on Government Oversight, ‘I’d bet you that if they go back to all of the living presidents and root through their homes and their libraries and their warehouses and garages, they’re going to unearth some classified documents there’…Such security lapses are a somewhat regular occurrence, according to one former senior security official involved in protecting classified presidential documents under Trump and his predecessor, Barack Obama…Mark Zaid, a lawyer who specializes in the handling of classified information, said such lapses date back to World War II or earlier, and are far more common than is known publicly.” 

Sure, no big deal!  Happens all the time!

But if Biden’s mishandling of classified documents is a routine matter, why was it necessary to use dozens of FBI Agents with a search warrant to recover documents from Donald Trump that “all living presidents” have in their homes, libraries and garages?  

According to Sky News, there are three main differences between Trump and Biden’s situations; “Firstly, quantity. Fewer than twelve documents were found at the Penn Biden Center and “a handful” were found in Delaware. More than 160 were found at Mar-a-Lago. This excuse might not hold water: one document in the wrong hands could be one too many. Secondly, location. In relation to the first batch of Biden documents discovered, it’s arguable that a private office-space is distinct from a personal home which doubles as a country club (Mar-a-Lago). But then the second batch was found in President Biden’s garage alongside, as it happens, his Corvette! The key difference between the two cases is intent. It’s not unusual when someone at the top of government leaves office to find cases where documents of a secret nature get mixed up with those of a personal nature.”

All three of these alleged differences cannot withstand scrutiny.

Judge John Wilson (ret.) served on the bench in NYC.

THE ARTICLE CONTINUES TOMORROW

Illustration: Pixabay

Turkmenistan rarely makes the front page of western newspapers. Its leadership in Ashgabat advocates isolation from outsiders and rarely seeks publicity from foreign media.

Authoritarianism is deeply embedded in the country’s culture. Analysts often talk about it as rivaling that of North Korea’s closed autarkic society. Although Turkmenistan’s constitution mandates strict neutrality, its extensive natural gas reserves and strategic location bordering Afghanistan have brought it to the attention of other states in the region, along with the European Union, United States, China, and Russia.

One country stands out among others in its pursuit of a close relationship with the Central Asian state: China. Beijing is playing a dominant role in the country’s foreign relations. It’s expanding the CCP’s influence there through a series of meetings and its acceptance of state corruption. China’s dual goal in Turkmenistan is to secure its natural resources for the Chinese domestic economy and to have a major influence in Ashgabat’s regional affairs as Turkmenistan lies in a critical geopolitical location along the trade route between Asia and Europe and sits next to unstable Afghanistan, according to Paul Goble writing in the Eurasia Daily Monitor. Although the number of countries expressing a new interest in Turkmenistan is increasing, “none has done more and achieved more success than China,” he says. Beijing’s partnership with the state has expanded the communist giant’s opportunities in Central Asia and helped it gainmaccess to critical gas supplies and important transportation routes that China needs for its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Goble points out that Ashgabat is the perfect partner for Beijing. Its authoritarian elite prefer secrecy to open discussion, and like the CCP, resent criticism of its poor human rights record and unofficially-sanctioned corruption. Turkmenistan, in turn, remains silent on Beijing’s brutal repression of Muslims in Xinjiang. Turkmenistan’s rulers have avoided Moscow-dominated integration projects, including the Eurasian Economic Community and the Collective Security Treaty Organization, giving China an opening, especially as Beijing has money to spend on infrastructure projects, according to a report from the Carnegie Endowment for Peace. Russia is not simply relinquishing its position in Central Asia to China.

Nuray Alekberli, a researcher at the Strategic Studies Consulting Company in Azerbaijan, points out that in recent weeks, “Russia, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan have been hotly discussing the possibility of establishing a trilateral natural gas union among the three countries.” The region is simmering and in the future competition between Russia and China could become a kinetic conflict.

Turkmenistan opposes any change in international borders and thus backs Beijing on the status of Taiwan. In July 2021 the EurAsia Daily Monitor reported that Turkmenistan welcomes the securitynassistance China gives without the constraints most other countries impose. Over the last two years that relationship has grown stronger. On January 6 there was a meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Turkmenistani President Serdar Berdimuhamedov. The date is significant as it marks the 31 st  anniversary of Beijing’s diplomatic recognition of Ashgabat. Salam News called the meeting a “lovefest,” with the two leaders praising each other and signing a laundry list of agreements that would seem to put them on the path to becoming allies.

Their agreements were of two primary types, according to Goble. One covered China’s expanded role in Turkmenistan’s economy and the other Beijing’s hopes that Ashgabat will be an agent for expanding its influence throughout Central Asia. He says the reasons for the first are more obvious; but those for the second are likely to be the more consequential.

China agreed to build a fourth pipeline eastward and Chinese investors will pour money into the economy to support new infrastructure projects covering several economic sectors. In return Ashgabat will increase its sales of gas to China. The agreements indicate that China will likely have an expanded presence in Ashgabat and along the Afghan border. China is not only pressing for expanded economic ties, but also cultural and educational ones to further cement the bilateral relationship.

“The two presidents agreed on three steps that will likely have an enormous impact far beyond Turkmenistan’s borders. First, they agreed that China’s Belt and Road Initiative and Turkmenistan’s New Silk Road initiative should be integrated, something that will expand Beijing’s ability to export goods westward through Turkmenistan via the Caspian Sea to the Caucasus and onward to Europe. Second, they indicated that this east-west route has priority over any other, including the north-south corridor that Russia and Iran are keenly interested in, but that it would not be developed in a way that would preclude others from investing in such a route. And third, they agreed that Turkmenistan will take the lead in organizing a summit meeting for the five Central Asian countries and China, a Chinese “5+1” arrangement that is effectively a rebuff to Russia’s “5+1” plans,” says Goble.

Russian commentators have downplayed China’s influence and activities by casting Moscow as another strategic partner of Turkmenistan. The locus of power, however, has shifted toward Beijing and the money it can provide the country. It appears that any previous “division of labor” between China and Russia is not longer relevant to the Central Asian state and that a new security arrangement is coming into focus. Moscow’s war in Ukraine constrains it from moving troops into the region. Eventually the war will end and Putin and Xi will need to come to an agreement over Central Asia.

Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.

The Tawang Sector may not be a familiar geographic designation recognized by most people in the West, but it is an important location at the center of the clash between India and China high in the Himalayan Arunchal Pradesh. Last month on December 9, the PLA and Indian armies clashed there along the Line of Actual Control (LAC). Forty-eight hours later commanders from both sides met to restore peace despite their recently injured troops. It marked the first major skirmish between the two armies in the eastern sector since the Galwan Valley clash in the western sector in Eastern Ladakh on June 15, 2020, according to Amirta Jash of the Jamestown Foundation. 

After this latest skirmish India’s Defense Minister, Rajnath Singh told Parliament that “PLA troops tried to transgress the LAC in Yangtze area of Tawang Sector and unilaterally change the status quo. The Chinese attempt was contested by our troops in a firm and resolute manner.” At first it may appear as an unimportant border clash that was quickly resolved, however, Jash says it needs to be understood in the context of two key developments in relation to the ongoing standoff in Eastern Ladakh.

The first, he says, is the conduct of the 18^th iteration of Indo-U.S. joint training exercise “Yudh Abhyas 22” held near the middle sector of the LAC November 15 to December 3. China opposed the joint military exercise claiming that it “violated the spirit of relevant agreements signed by China and India in 1993 and 1996, and does not help build bilateral trust.” The second incident in question was Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh on November 19 to inaugurate the Donyi Polo Airport in Itanagar. The region is becoming more politically sensitive as engineering advances and other technologies have emerged in recent years that make it possible to build a “super dam” at the confluence of two important river systems at the top of the Himalayas. The Chinese government is developing plans to create a dam ten times larger than the Three Gorges project in China. It would be capable of controlling the flow of water across the entire Indian subcontinent. To date five buffer zones exist in the region. None include Tawang. 

It is reasonable to ask, says Jash, if the clash at Tawang is a sign of another “standoff”  in the making in the eastern sector or something more? The disputed McMahon Line, declared official after the 1962 China-India border war, is not valid according to China, and as it is viewed as an “imperial legacy,” that is “illegal,” and “unacceptable.” Yet in 1960 Beijing technically accepted the McMahon Line as the basis for settling its border dispute with Myanmar. Some analysts are asking why is there a discrepancy in Beijing, with one part of the line acknowledged as valid but not Tawang. It turns out that Tawang is the birthplace of the sixth Dalai Lama and serves as an important Tibetan Buddhist pilgrimage center. This provides China with the justification to claim the Aranachal Pradesh as a 34,749 square mile extension of South Tibet.  

China Daily, as far back as 2006, quoted its Ambassador to India, Sun Yuxi, as saying that “in our position, the whole of what you call the state of Arunachal Pradesh is Chinese territory and Tawang (district) is only one place in it and we are claiming all of that – that’s our position.” Today, the once frozen land filled with valuable resources to be claimed by its owner, is in play. Chinese officials point  repeatedly to the argument that the area has been a part of China’s territory since the ancient times and that its Chinese ethnic minorities such as the Moinba and Tibetan ethnic groups have lived and worked in this area for a long time. India has similar historic claims.

 Xi Jinping has stated, according to Jash, that China “will never allow any people, organization or political party to split any part of Chinese territory from the country at any time, in any form.” He calls it an “uncompromising attitude,” and argues that the recent clash at Tawang should be seen in the context of China’s increasing attempts to revive, legitimize and reinforce its sovereignty claims. 

The US Department of Defense’s annual China Military Power Report in 2021 noted that “within disputed territory between the Tibet Autonomous Region and India’s Arunachal Pradesh state in the eastern sector of the LAC,” China has built a 100-home civilian hamlet. Such practices align with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s call to the Tibetan herdsmen to “put down roots in the border area” in order to protect “Chinese territory.” China is also ramping up construction of railways and other infrastructure capabilities in the region that could provide logistical supply support to potential troop movements into the region in the future. China has a history of viewing the world in terms of generational plans unlike the West. With India overtaking China as the most populous nation in the world this year, Beijing could decide it needs to take the region by force to offset the change in power. Controlling the Himalayan highlands would enable China one day to build a super dam capable of flooding farmland or causing drought in the Indian subcontinent. Control of the Tawang Sector is about more than a simple 48-hour border clash.

Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.

Photo: Pixabay

Many Russian leaders firmly believe that Western capitalist nations are intent on seeing Russia deconstructed to resemble a small principality than a strong nation-state run more closely by its authoritarian leader Vladimir Putin.

“Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev’s recent tirade against the West, as well as his insistence that Western governments are the tools of major capitalist groups and that the West wants to reduce Russia to the size of 15^th-century Muscovy has attracted enormous attention as an indication of prevailing attitudes in the Kremlin and possible plans for even greater self-isolation and more aggression against Russia’s neighbors,” says Paul Goble of the Jamestown Foundation.

In Patrushev’s Argumenty i fakty interview earlier this week he became the first senior Russian leader in decades to openly refer to the ethnically Ukrainian population living in the Russian Far East. It is a relatively unknown population problem Putin previously considered resolved.  It may indicate that Russia is newly concerned about their allegiance to Russia. Patrushev, according to Goble, noted that “in the southern parts of the Far East, given the large share of those who resettled there already during the times of [tsarist prime minister Pyotr] Stolypin, a significant number of residents consider the culture of the Ukrainian people to be their native one.” 

Ukrainians view these communities as key outposts of Ukrainian civilization. Goble says they often are referred as “wedges,” with the one in the Far East between Vladivostok, Vostok and Khabarovsk being the “green” wedge and others such as those along the Russian-Kazakhstani border and in the Kuban being the “blue” and “crimson” wedges. In recent decades Moscow has employed harsh measures to suppress these communities. Yet it is only in the last eight years that more has emerged in the Russian media about the plight of these groups. The publication Russian7.ru recently reported that “in the post-Soviet period, the number of Ukrainians in the Siberian population has significantly contracted in all regions,” especially in the north but also in the Far East more generally. Since 1989, the deaths, departures, and assimilation of Ukrainians accounts for the two-thirds decrease in the ethnic population in the Chita Oblast. Russia7.ru says that only about half as many in Irkutsk, Buryatia, Sakha, Krasnoyarsk Krai and Kemerovo Oblast. Goble points out that in acknowledging that the number of ethnic Russians across the Far East has fallen by more than 50 percent, “Russian outlets unintentionally call attention to the critical role ethnic Ukrainians have played east of the Urals in the past and the ways in which they continue to play a role to this day.”

Goble cites three developments over the past several years have given the Kremlin new cause for concern regarding the Ukrainian “wedges” inside its current borders. He argues that many Moscow writers saw the resistance to the central government in Khabarovsk as a reflection of the Ukrainian background of the population in that Far Eastern republic. The Ukrainian government, he adds, has also  increasingly called attention to these Ukrainian areas. Kyiv has enraged political leaders in Moscow who have long claimed the right to intervene on behalf of ethnic Russians while refusing to accept when anyone else does the same regarding other ethnicities in Russia. 

Historically Russia is sensitive to past incursions on both its east and western borders. Over a century ago in its Far Eastern region it was attacks by Japan along with some Western countries. More recently Moscow claims some Ukrainian officials are discussing the potential of a “re-Ukrainization” of the region. Analysts suggest that this sets off alarms for Putin when anyone mentions these “green wedges.”  

Ukrainian writers, adds Goble, have begun to talk about other “wedges” inside the Russian Federation, too. Analysts suggest that Moscow may be concerned about domestic threats elsewhere in Russia from Ukrainian-related populations. The two wedges that have attracted the most attention, first in Ukraine and then in Moscow, are the Kuban and the Ukrainian communities along the Russian-Kazakhstani border, Goble says. Many in Ukraine want Kuban back as it once was Ukrainian. The second community one hundred years ago also had a large Ukrainian population. 

Today, Putin views that group as fomenting anti-Russian attitudes as far away as Kazakhstan. It has the potential to halt any future plans Russia has for reabsorbing Kazakhstan back into the Russian Federation. The war in Ukraine has many complications with far reaching consequences. Ukrainian diaspora are only one concern of the Kremlin’s today. It may turn out that Putin’s special military operation turns into a long war that spreads across more national borders as the small fires appear to be reigniting and are difficult to extinguish although in some cases a hundred years has passed.

Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.

Illustration: Pixabay