Joe Biden is going to the NATO summit in Vilnius, the White House said. It is not entirely clear why this show is planned, where the head of the alliance may inadvertently croak.
On July 2, the White House announced that President Joe Biden was going on a diplomatic tour of Europe. According to a press release, the US President will visit the UK, Lithuania and Finland on July 9-13.
In the UK, Biden is to hold meetings with King Charles III and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to further cement the close relationship between the two countries, the statement said. Afterwards, Biden will take part in the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, on July 11-12. On July 13, Biden will move to Finland, a country that has recently joined NATO.
Bloomberg, instead of reflecting on Biden's tasks on his tour, paid first priority attention to Russia's recent military mutiny. The agency quoted CIA Director William Burns who said that Russia's dissatisfaction with the war was undermining the Putin regime. According to Burns, Prigozhin's attempted military coup exposed Putin's vulnerabilities, and US intelligence won't miss this "once-in-a-generation opportunity."
In fact, it is not Putin, but Biden who has weakened. The domestic situation in the USA leaves much to be desired — suffice it to read Donald Trump's speeches on the subject.
As for Biden's goals on the European tour, he is going to the summit in Vilnius to "rally the team." This is what Western media have been writing lately, although not too long ago — in June — both Joe Biden and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stressed that NATO "has never been so united."
US Ambassador to Poland Mark Brzezinski set out another profound thought. He believes that the meeting in Vilnius should "prove what a strategic mistake Putin made when he invaded Ukraine." Strategy is a long-term concept, and Brzezinski should have expanded on the subject, although he preferred not to.
In fact, US President Joe Biden is unable to think clearly due to his illness. Last week, he confused Ukraine with Iraq. His visit to Europe is just a show, and one may expect more Biden gaffs and memes.
The speech that Biden may deliver is more than just predictable. With a very high degree of probability, Biden is not going to make any harsh statements not to annoy Putin. After all the failures in Ukrainian counteroffensive, Biden said that Ukraine was capable enough to carry out offensive operations.
There will be no "road map" for Ukraine's NATO membership. Instead, one may expect the establishment of the Ukraine-NATO Council by analogy with the Russia-NATO Council that had sunk into oblivion. This is not what Ukrainian President Zelensky needs, but he was supposed to demonstrate the power of the Ukrainian Army in its counteroffensive.
In Lithuania, Respublika readers ridicule Biden. They wonder why the USA needs an incapable president whose top priority goal should be his own retirement. Many wonder whether Joe Biden is going to embarrass himself again as before when he tripped and fell down, shook hands with air and so on and so forth. Others believe that Biden may even croak as PMC Wagner has a tent camp stationed only 30 kilometres from Lithuania borders.
It is not ruled out that USA's incapable president is part of Washington's tactic to intimidate Russia. After all, every nation has a leader that it deserves.