Back in the USSR: When Joe Met Vova?

President Biden claims to have known the Kremlin strongman since Putin’s KGB days – what’s going on here?

Today, the 80^th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, was a big event for NATO, a late chance to hail the veterans of that history-changing amphibious operation. A decade from now, few of the men who stormed the five beaches on June 6, 1944 will remain alive. Today therefore represents a last hurrah of sorts for the storied “Greatest Generation.”

The tone was different than past milestone D-Day anniversaries, however, with the threat of major war looming over Europe in a manner not seen since the 1980s, the Cold War’s tempestuous last decade. Significantly, Russia was not invited to participate in today’s events, despite the Soviet Union having been part of the Allied coalition that defeated Nazi Germany. Russian President Vladimir Putin attended the 70^th anniversary event, but he was not invited this time, due to his renewed aggression against Ukraine in 2022, Europe’s bloodiest war since 1945. In his place, Ukraine got an invitation, with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy attending, winning a solid photo op for his effort.

President Joe Biden took center stage and, while the White House hoped for something on a par with President Ronald Reagan’s famous speech at Normandy in 1984, for the 40^th anniversary, that didn’t happen. Instead, Biden seemed to nearly stumble on the stage, reminding that his age is a salient issue in this year’s election, albeit one which Democrats do their best not to mention. The strange moves on stage got more attention than Biden’s speech, which mentioned “freedom” and “democracy” several times, echoing Democratic themes applied against Donald Trump.