A billboard dedicated to the “Defender of the Fatherland Day” reads “For victory! For ours! For truth!” on a street in Moscow, on Feb. 20.
Photographer: Yuri Kadobnov/AFP/Getty Images
How Biden’s Shock-and-Awe Tactic Is Failing to Stop Russia
The economic punishment of Russia was touted as a game-changer. Instead it’s turned into a war of attrition — and a race against time.
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan’s West Wing office was crammed with sleep-deprived staffers on the morning of Feb. 26, 2022. Clad in jeans and button-down shirts, clutching coffees or cold pizza, they were waiting for President Joe Biden to join on a secure line. Russia had invaded Ukraine two days earlier. The burning question of the day: How to stop a war.
The US had been warning of a looming invasion for weeks. Sullivan’s team had a plan, one they’d kept closely held out of fear it would be discovered by Russian intelligence. It involved freezing some $300 billion of Russian central bank assets held abroad. That would generate enough shock and awe, the authors figured, to bring President Vladimir Putin’s war to a halt — or at the very least, severely hamper his ability to fight it.