From the desk of the Editor-in-Chief... The big foreign-policy headline from U.S. President Joe Biden's nearly two-hour news conference on Wednesday? That despite weeks of behind-the-scenes diplomacy, he now expects Russian President Vladimir Putin to order an invasion of Ukraine.
More than 100,000 Russian troops are stationed along Ukraine's border, and on Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, in the latest attempt to find an offramp from the current impasse. But no amount of high-level summitry can answer the one question everyone has: What does Putin actually want? In a sense, as former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul told me last week in an
FP Live conversation, Putin may have already won by successfully reframing Russia's role in Europe.
There are, of course, many other unanswered questions about the Ukraine crisis, including the effects of a potential war on Russia's already faltering economy, the role of energy supplies, and how NATO's function is changing.
Subscribe for ongoing coverage of the Ukraine crisis. As we think through what might happen next, it might help to understand how we got here. Our editors have put together a
special page featuring our best recent coverage on U.S.-Russia relations, Ukraine, and the impact a potential conflict would have on Europe and the world. I also recommend looking at our recent
exclusive interview with U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, who attempts to explain what exactly the Biden Doctrine is, and our extensive
report card assessing the first year of Biden's foreign policy.
—Ravi Agrawal
Here are some of the questions our experts have tackled in recent days…
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