Jennifer Griffin Says ‘Post-Cold War’ Stability Coming to an End: World Must ‘Brace Itself’ For What’s Next

Fox News National Security Correspondent Jennifer Griffin gave a detailed and bleak report on the situation in Ukraine, telling anchor Bret Baier that “the post-cold war architecture” that ensured stability and order in Europe is coming to an end.

Griffin’s report came as news and even some video began spreading on social media and in some international publications of major troop movements into the Donbas region of Ukraine following Russian President Vladimir Putin declaring that Russia will formally recognize the sovereignty of two self-declared independent republics in eastern Ukraine, Luhansk and Donetsk.

“Eyewitnesses in the Donbas say that columns of tanks and armored personnel carriers with Russian troops have begun moving into the Donbas,” Griffin began. “U.S. officials are waiting and watching to see if those troops go beyond the Donbas.”

After Putin’s remarks, press secretary Jen Psaki said that President Joe Biden will be issuing an executive order with sanctions against the two separatist areas and authorizing additional sanctions against Russia, a move not every member of Congress finds sufficient.

Griffin noted that the United States is maintaining that no American troops will be sent “to fight in Ukraine,” and added that indications are Putin has “no intention of backing down and that all of Ukraine is in his sights.”

“Now, Putin says he’s sending Russian troops to serve as quote peacekeepers in the Donbas areas that he just recognized as independent,” she said.

She then laid out the bleak picture of what can be expected in a full invasion, including great personal danger for Ukrainian journalists.

This is Putin’s opening gambit, and he will want to see the response from the U.S. and its allies. Putin has options tonight militarily, but if Putin opts for a full invasion, the justification of which he laid out in his speech today, here’s what we can expect to see: electronic warfare, combined with cyber attacks will disaggregate and paralyze the Ukraine government and military. Anything on the communication GPS or magnetic spectrum will go dark.

This period of pre-assault fire would then be followed by salvos of ballistic missiles. Those Iskander missile units in Belarus, Russian fourth and fifth-generation attack aircraft will then flood the airspace. Think blitzkrieg waves of attacks that will look like U.S. shock and awe at the start of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Targeting Air Defense Systems Command and control sites. The next wave will include tube artillery and rocket launchers, likely in the wee hours of the morning. Then he will insert his special forces, who we are told have target lists of Ukrainian journalists and civil society leaders.

Griffin’s report that Putin has his eyes on all of Ukraine follows not just from what the United States has said but directly from Putin’s long speech which questioned the very existence of Ukraine as an independent state.

Griffin closed the report with an assessment of where things stand.

“Tonight, Bret, we are witnessing the beginning of the end of the post-Cold War architecture, which ensured a rules-based order, stability, and respect for the sovereignty of nations. The world must now brace itself for what follows,” she said.

The destruction of the post-Cold War order in Europe is on the minds of many observers and experts on Monday night. In an article at The Atlantic, author and professor at the U.S. Naval War College Tom Nichols explained that Putin’s “likely next move will be to stage some sort of incident in which he claims (as he did in Georgia in his war there) that the Ukrainians are the aggressors, and that Russia is acting only in defense of ethnic Russians.”

“This is the pretext for war,” he said of Putin’s speech.

Like Griffin, Nichols pointed out that this marks a dramatic shift in an order that has lasted since the fall of the Soviet Union.

“Putin has now affirmed that he refuses to accept the outcome of the Cold War and that he will fight to dismantle the European system of peace and security constructed by the international community after its end,” wrote Nichols. “This is Vladimir Putin’s forever war, and Russia, cursed as it has been so many times in its history with a terrible leader, will be fighting it for as long as Putin remains the master of the Kremlin.”

Watch the clip above, via Fox News.