A top adviser to Vladimir Putin says that the Russian president threatened a full diplomatic break with the United States should Washington impose new sanctions on Russia.
Speaking to Russian state media following a conversation between Presidents Putin and Biden late Thursday evening Moscow time, Yuri Ushakov noted that Biden had again warned that the U.S. and its allies would impose new sanctions on Russia should it invade Ukraine. Such sanctions, the former ambassador to Washington said, would be a “colossal mistake” by the U.S. that would risk a “complete rupture of relations” between the two countries.
Biden has threatened to impose sanctions on Moscow should Russia invade Ukraine. U.S. intelligence officials believe such an invasion is increasingly likely and, contrary to some media reporting, Russia continues to amass a very significant combined arms military force on and increasingly inside Ukraine’s borders. The U.S. is newly concerned by Russian special forces activity inside areas of southeastern Ukraine controlled by pro-Russian rebels. U.S. and British air force surveillance flights were monitoring this activity from western Ukrainian airspace on Thursday.
Interestingly, Ushakov also suggested that Biden had pledged not to deploy U.S. strategic weapons such as nuclear missiles and anti-missile defense systems in Ukraine.
That commitment would make sense, seeing as no such deployments were ever under serious U.S. consideration. Still, the Russian referencing of Biden’s apparent pledge is indicative of Moscow’s sense that it holds the strategic initiative over Ukraine. This perception has almost certainly been fueled by Biden’s refusal to provide more arms support to Ukraine and by the West’s failure to identify specific sanctions that would follow any Russian attack.
Absent that clarity, Putin will believe he can separate the U.S. between those NATO allies such as the Baltic states and Poland that would push for major sanctions in the event of an invasion (sanctions targeting Russian energy exports and corporate clients in the West), and other allies such as France, Germany, and Italy, which would seek milder sanctions not involving energy or financial sectors.
Top line: A new Russian war with Ukraine remains the most likely outcome.
