Politico’s Alex Ward on Biden’s Russia and Ukraine policy

U.S. President Joe Biden took less than two minutes to bring up Russia in his 2024 State of the Union address. “If anybody in this room thinks Putin will stop at Ukraine, I assure you, he will not,” Biden said, prompting a standing ovation. “But Ukraine can stop Putin if we stand with Ukraine and provide the weapons it needs to defend itself.”

An unwavering commitment to supporting Ukraine in its fight against Russia has been at the center of the Biden administration’s foreign policy for more than two years now. But Washington’s relations with Moscow and Kyiv looked very different when Biden took office back in 2021. For the inside scoop on team Biden’s Russia and Ukraine policy, and how Moscow’s 2022 invasion turned all their plans upside down, Meduza turns to Politico national security reporter Alex Ward, the author of The Internationalists: The Fight To Restore American Foreign Policy After Trump.

Timestamps for this episode:

• (5:07) How did team Biden originally plan to handle relations with Moscow and Kyiv?
• (11:40) How did the 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal influence the response to Russia’s looming Ukraine invasion?
• (15:46) Why did U.S. intelligence get Russia’s invasion plan right but its military capabilities wrong?
• (23:40) What did the first two years tell us about team Biden’s approach to foreign policy?
• (26:52) What will the Biden administration be remembered for?

New episodes of The Naked Pravda are released at the end of every week. Catch each show by subscribing through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or one of these other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the podcast, please write to Kevin Rothrock at kevin@meduza.io with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

Production by Ania Kovalenko. Sound editing and mixing by Eilish Hart.