Recent developments in the Ukraine crisis

Larry Wilkerson, Colin Powell's chief of staff at the State Department 2002-2005, gives Deutsche Welle his thoughts on the Ukraine situation and how it developed over the last 30 years. He also has some salty comments about the US military-industrial complex. (From the start through 14:50) The remainder is about a case of intrigue involving Turkish arms sales to Ukraine.

US says Russian attack no longer 'imminent' +++ Turkey offers mediation role in Ukraine 02/03/2022:

There's an often-used phrase "the fog of war." But there can also be fogs in diplomacy, as well. In the last several days, the Ukrainian government was complaining that the NATO countries were unnecessarily hyping the Russian threat. And Anatol Lieven analyzes a surprisingly and puzzling difference in the tone the US was taking with that of the NATO secretariat in Leaked drafts of NATO, US responses to Russia are surprisingly revealing Responsible Statecraft 02/02/2022. He notes that "Russia [is] breaking off talks with NATO and negotiating directly with the United States."

Of course, Russia is communicating with the other NATO countries, too. But these formal postures do mean something in diplomacy. Even when its difficult for public to guess what they might mean.