Stevenson’s army, February 12

– Both US & Russia are withdrawing personnel from their Kyiv embassies. Biden & Putin are supposed to talk today.  Politico says Biden told foreign leaders Feb 16 looks like invasion day.

– NYT says US disclosed possible Russian moves as part of info ops.

– Fred Kaplan sees some Russian military opposition to Putin.

-WSJ reports US moves to block Chinese base in Africa.

– In a Solomonic move, Biden splits frozen Afghan money, half to humanitarian relief, half to 9/11 victims’ families.

-I agree with Tim Noah’s article, Washington is not a swamp.

My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).