Russia didn’t make any territorial moves during the Trump Presidency. Now they are massing troops along the border of Ukraine. This conflict has been smoldering since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 during the last Democratic administration. The aggression largely dropped off when President Trump took the White House. Now it seems that Putin doesn’t feel as constrained as he used to. This is from the New York Times:

The latest violence in eastern Ukraine and the troop buildup could well be a way for Moscow to measure the Biden administration’s commitment to Ukraine, according to current and former officials.

“This could be posturing, but the Kremlin is testing the new administration,” said Frederick B. Hodges, a retired lieutenant general and a former top U.S. Army commander in Europe.

Russia has “zero interest” in a real peace for Ukraine and wants to keep the country as destabilized as possible, said General Hodges, who is now with the Center for European Policy Analysis.

In a January call with Mr. Putin, President Biden focused on the importance of Ukrainian sovereignty. But since then Mr. Biden has not scheduled a call with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, raising questions among some former officials about how serious the new administration is about resolving the conflict there.

Russia is also claiming that Ukraine may be about to  be embroiled in a civil war. They can say this with a fair amount of certainty because they did the same thing in Crimea. They installed enough pro-Russian partisans in the country to make it look like it was being driven by the local populace. We would call this astro-turfing. Russia  has pretty much said it doesn’t give a crap about what we think by recalling its ambassador. They wouldn’t typically do this if they were worried about what the current powers in Washington thinks. Putin probably sees this as a chance to consolidate as much of the old empire as he can before Washington feels its oats again.

It will be interesting to see if our current administration addresses this. If it does, it will probably be in line with what they have done with Myanmar.

I will leave you with this: