Even though Biden has, to a certain extent, backed down, The Saker is still concerned about the prospects of war over Ukraine:
Bad news all around today. The US has just slammed provocative sanctions against Russia even though the US ambassador to Moscow was summoned to the Foreign Ministry and clearly told that if the US imposes more sanctions there will be no meeting between Putin and Biden.
Then there is this: the US has informed the Turkish authorities that they will not send two USN ships into the Black Sea. This is politically a good sign, but in military terms, this is what the US should be doing if they were preparing for war. Why? Because any USN ship in the Black Sea at the moment of the initiation of a conflict would be sunk withing minutes: not only do the Russians have formidable missiles – Bal and Bastion – they had SIX advanced diesel-electric submarines of the 636.3 class ready to “greet” them. Keep in mind that engaging submarines without air cover is another form of collective suicide.
So, the phone call was a deception and the US is still going down the road towards war with Russia.
In my professional opinion, what I see is a joint preparation by the Ukronazis and the USA (along with the UK and Poland) to attack the Donbass and force a conflict upon Russia.
It is very hard for me to see how a war could be avoided.
UPDATE: Biden has just declared a national emergency in the USA in response to the Russian threat. He will make a special address to the nation tonight.
I don’t have an opinion, simply because I have no confidence about who is actually calling the shots behind the scenes of the Biden Not-Administration. If it’s China or the neoclowns, there will be war. If it is the US military, there will not be war.
Biden, of course, has no idea what is going on. The question is, who is writing his script?