I agree with you that Biden cannot be trusted. Biden’s idea, at the start, was your idea: we’ll fly Zelensky out of the country and let Russia take over Ukraine. Zelensky gummed up the works by standing and fighting. Then, Boris Johnson - not Biden - messed things up even more by backing Zelensky. What choice did this leave Biden?
As to whether Ukraine can retake Crimea and for that matter the Donbas region, is an academic question. Yes, maybe, if Russia collapses. But, by such thinking, Nazi Germany would have defeated Russia. Maybe Russia will collapse, like it did in World War I. But, maybe not, like World War II. It’s not something you can count on.
Moreover, why should we care? As long as we are secure in our borders, Russia can go the route of North Korea or the route of South Korea or anything in between.
The relevant question at this time is whether Ukraine can retake Zaporizhzhia and Kherson west of the Dnieper, so as to move a potential cease fire line to the Sea of Azov. This question will only be answered on the ground, by the armies of Ukraine and of Russia.
Where ever the cease fire line is drawn, NATO forces should be deployed to that line, so Russia realizes that invading Ukraine means war with NATO, and Ukraine is secure in its borders.
Ditto the Caucuses. Now that Armenia is signalling that it might re-align with the west, it, Georgia and Azerbaijan should be fast-tracked for NATO and the EU, so they, too, can be secure in their borders and get about the business of life.
Biden's idea at the start, was not mine at all. I take into consideration, the following.
Boris Yeltsin picked Vladimir Putin in August 1999. B. Yeltsin had already been using historical Soviet police state enforcement tactics to crush his opposition but lose at prosecuting the First Chechnya War, when in later 1999, V. Putin took up the reigns and proceeded to forcefully prosecute a long-running Second Chechnya War.
While Al Gore's plans to assist the Russian economy, were rapidly failing:
Reinventing Russia: Al Gore's Misguided Quest [September 8, 1999, Wall St. Journal]
Occidental Petroleum (Al Gore connection) had unloaded (or planned to unload) some asian oil block work and was arranging some oil block exploration in Yemen. The U.S. DoD (President Clinton Admin.) sent the U.S.S. Cole to Aden, Yemen, where the U.S.S. Cole failed to defend the ship, October 12, 2000.
Gore’s Links With Russian Now a Liability [October 24, 2000, by Doyle McManus, Los Angeles Times]
EXCERPTS:
With the collapse of Russia’s economy, the souring of U.S.-Russian relations - and the tightening of the presidential campaign - the [Al Gore - Viktor Chernomyrdin] commission has become a political liability.
The commission met 10 times from 1993 to 1998 and produced a blizzard of agreements in business, science, energy, the environment and other areas. As Russia’s then-president, Boris N. Yeltsin, became more erratic, the Clinton administration relied on Chernomyrdin, his unimaginative but steady prime minister, as a key partner.
But in 1998, Yeltsin fired Chernomyrdin and Russia’s economy tanked, despite billions of dollars in aid from the International Monetary Fund [IMF].
Release trapped Russia funds now to aid Ukraine [February 25, 2022, by Daniel Runde, The Hill]
EXCERPTS:
The U.S.-Russia Investment Fund (TUSRIF) was established in 1995 to promote the development of a free market economy in Russia by fostering the growth of entrepreneurial companies. TUSRIF was one of 10 “enterprise funds” that were set up in Central and Eastern Europe and in the former Soviet Union. My colleagues and I have written extensively about enterprise funds. TUSRIF was financially very successful. Initially, Congress appropriated approximately $330 million of public funds to TUSRIF; through the 1990s and early 2000s, TUSRIF put those monies — plus the profits that it made on investments, more than $1 billion — into Russia’s economy, when we hoped that Russia would become a successful democracy.
Austin Beutner (board member of Evercore Partners) was President and Chief Executive Officer of the Fund for Large Enterprises in Russia (FLER/FLEER), who subsequently became the TUSRIF President and Chief Executive Officer.
Russian economic woes, plus President Clinton's bombing of Serbia (and covert training of Hezbollah in Lebanon), plus President George W. Bush's pro-longed mid-east nation building adventures (that included some cooperation from Russia versus terrorism, until 2004), plus European Union (EU) moral and military weaknesses, all "helped" V. Putin consider a restoration of Soviet annex-ploitation, tested by invading Georgia in 2008.
Ukraine was in Putin's path.