Evan Vucci/Pool via Reuters
In recent days, pundits and experts on Russian state television discussed the anticipated visit of U.S. President Joe Biden to Poland, confidently asserting that he would never dare travel to war-torn Ukraine. The news that Biden spent Presidents Day in Kyiv, alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, hit the Kremlin’s mouthpieces like a ton of bricks.
Visibly unsettled, 60 Minutes host Olga Skabeeva announced, “The White House has confirmed that Biden really is in the Ukrainian capital. He really came to the Ukrainian capital. Zelensky just published the pictures… There he is, Biden, in the flesh.” The program then played footage of the smiling American president walking alongside Zelensky and shaking hands with Ukrainian officials. The clip was set to dramatic music more suitable for a horror movie.
The reactions in the studio matched the sinister music. Military expert Evgeny Buzhinsky surmised, “Clearly, the West is headed towards an escalation… I think we should also cautiously start to walk down a path of escalation… The West has many vulnerabilities.” Buzhinsky floated his ideas for attacking Americans in retaliation for their alleged involvement in blowing up the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, proposing that Russia attack American pipelines at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, and the Norwegian Sea.