Presenting his credentials to Russian President Vladimir Putin, John Sullivan last week officially began his new role as ambassador to Russia.
The Boston, Massachusetts, native is focused on bolstering counterterrorism and counterproliferation cooperation, advancing dialogue in other areas, and warning Russia against aggressive interference in the 2020 U.S. elections.
It’s a big portfolio to be sure. But Sullivan comes to Moscow with at least one advantage.
In his previous post as deputy secretary of state, Sullivan led efforts to bolster counterterrorism cooperation. While Russian reciprocity lags, the United States’s help preventing recent attacks on Russian soil has not gone unnoticed. Putin thanked President Trump late last year after the U.S. shared intelligence that prevented a New Year’s Eve attack in Saint Petersburg. That followed the importance of U.S. intelligence in helping Russia prevent an earlier St. Petersburg terror attack in December 2017. As he pushes for reciprocity, Sullivan has real credibility.
More complicated will be the negotiation of a new counterproliferation treaty and Russia’s agreement to force Bashar Assad into concessions in Syria. Sullivan will also inevitably attract Russian ire over the continuation of U.S. sanctions imposed following Putin’s 2016 election interference campaign and his 2014 invasion of Ukraine. Contrary to the views of Emmanuel Macron, French president and fake leader of the liberal world order, Western sanctions cannot be removed unless and until Putin withdraws from the Crimean Peninsula and stops attacking Western interests.
But all things considered, Sullivan has made a good start.
He met with and protested the treatment of American Paul Whelan, whom Russia has detained for more than a year now. And Sullivan has even earned some positive media attention by showing off his shared affection for hockey, a sport widely viewed with almost religious fervor in Russia. Finally, the ambassador won praise last week from a senior government official, Alexei Kudrin.
All the same, this is Russia. As such, Russian state media cannot resist but throw some jabs at Sullivan. In a video report on Sullivan’s credential ceremony, the Western-focused Russia Insight channel sought to present the new ambassador as an eccentric. Another news report at a hockey event deliberately presented Sullivan as a small man. Here, we see the slightly less unpleasant sidekick to the Russian Federal Security Service’s harassment of U.S. diplomats in Russia. These Americans often return home to find furniture moved around and nasty gifts left for them.
Still, as I say, this is a good start. While Russia is likely to remain a preeminent U.S. adversary as long as Putin remains in power, that should not preclude us from pragmatic diplomacy. And that’s exactly what Sullivan seems to be doing.
