An initial meeting between senior Russian and U.S. officials ended with uncertainty from the United States about whether the talks mark the beginning of de-escalation or represent a pretense for intensified war with Ukraine.
“The Russians would tell you that they were an open bid for serious negotiation, and we will see if that is indeed the case,” Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman told reporters Monday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin necessitated the meeting by amassing Russian military forces around Ukraine’s borders, paired with a demand that Western nations agree to a practical contraction of NATO if they want to avoid war. Sherman floated some “preliminary ideas” for “reciprocal actions” that might ease the crisis, but her insistence that the U.S. wouldn’t negotiate NATO policy with Russia left a wide gulf between the two sides.
“Something that is absolutely important for us is categorically unacceptable for Americans,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said, per state media. “This is bad since it shows that the American side underestimates the seriousness of what is going on.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s team countered that Moscow shouldn’t underrate the range of options available to NATO.
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“The Russians are the ones with 100,000 troops on the border, but the trans-Atlantic alliance … we have forms of leverage, many of which we have mapped out and we have discussed extensively, in various fora, with our European partners and allies and others,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said. “There may be the idea out there that the Russians are the only [ones] with leverage. I think that misunderstands what we have available to us.”
Blinken and U.S. lawmakers have forecast an unprecedented battery of economic sanctions if Russia proceeds with another invasion of Ukraine. Sherman also gestured toward some room for negotiation on topics such as “missile placement” and “reciprocal limits on the size and scope of military exercises” in Europe.
“We also made clear that the United States is open to discussing the future of certain missile systems in Europe — along the lines of the now-defunct [Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty] between the U.S. and Russia,” she said, referring to a treaty that the U.S. withdrew from in 2019 after Russia developed and deployed missiles banned by the pact. “The Russians addressed the concerns that we had that led to the ultimate demise of the INF Treaty. This was not a negotiation, so we were putting ideas on the table today. And we have a long way to go, but, of course, there are ongoing concerns about intermediate-range missiles.”
Blinken and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, who leads the junior member of Germany’s coalition government, also have suggested that the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline linking Germany and Russia might be blocked if the attack takes place.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic Party, however, wants the pipeline to be activated regardless of Putin’s policy toward Ukraine.
”Nord Stream 2 is, so to say, nearly connected to the grid, with only the lack of legal permits hindering the final start of operations,” SPD General Secretary Kevin Kuehnert said last week. “At some stage, there must be political and legal peace in such a discussion.”
The NATO allies most vulnerable to Russian threats have taken comfort from the U.S. posture entering the talks.
“This is certainly not a week where something extraordinary will be decided,” Juri Luik, the Estonian ambassador to NATO, said Monday. “The USA has made it clear that if there is a conflict, if Russia further invades Ukraine, the USA will bring its troops to Eastern Europe, in addition to economic sanctions and political steps.”
Ryabkov’s commentary after the meeting left Putin with wide latitude, according to Western observers.
“He expressed some optimism saying ‘the American side took the Russian proposals very seriously.’ This allows Putin to claim he forced the US to take RU interests into account and possibly back down w/o losing face,” tweeted Andrea Kendall-Taylor, the Center for New American Security’s trans-Atlantic security program director. “Ryabkov simultaneously reinforced that security guarantees are the priority, allowing Putin to use this as a pretext for a military escalation.”
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Ryabkov, for his part, expressed pleasure just in the fact of having the conversation.
“Now, a spade was called a spade, which in itself has a therapeutic effect on our relations with the West,” he said.
