Biden, Putin exchange warnings in call
President Joe Biden warned Russia’s Vladimir Putin yesterday that the US could impose new sanctions against Russia if it takes further military action against Ukraine, while Putin responded that such a move could lead to a complete rupture of ties between the nations.
The two leaders spoke frankly for nearly an hour amid growing alarm over Russia’s troop build-up near Ukraine, a crisis that has deepened as the Kremlin has stiffened its insistence on border security guarantees and test-fired hypersonic missiles to underscore its demands.
Further US sanctions “would be a colossal mistake that would entail grave consequences”, said Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov, who briefed reporters in Moscow after the Biden-Putin phone conversation. He added that Putin told Biden that Russia would act as the US would if offensive weapons were deployed near American borders.
White House officials offered a more muted analysis, suggesting the leaders agreed there are areas where the two sides can make meaningful progress but also differences that might be impossible to resolve.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden “urged Russia to deescalate tensions with Ukraine” and “made clear that the United States and its allies and partners will respond decisively if Russia further invades Ukraine”.
Putin requested the call, the second between the leaders in December, ahead of scheduled talks between senior US and Russian officials January 9 and 10 in Geneva.
The Geneva talks will be followed by a meeting of the Russia-Nato Council on January 12 and negotiations at the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Vienna on January 13.
White House officials said yesterday’s call lasted 50 minutes, ending after midnight in Moscow.
Biden told Putin the two powers
now face “two paths”: Diplomacy or American deterrence through sanctions, according to a senior administration official. Biden said the route taken, according to the official, would “depend on Russia’s actions in the period ahead”.
Russia has made clear it wants a written commitment that Ukraine will never be allowed to join Nato and that the alliance’s military equipment will not be positioned in former Soviet states, demands that the Biden administration has rejected.
Biden told Putin a diplomatic path remains open even as the Russians have moved an estimated 100,000 troops toward Ukraine and Kremlin
officials have turned up the volume on their demands for new guarantees from the US and Nato.
White House officials said Biden made clear that the US stands ready to exact substantial economic pain through sanctions should Putin take military action in Ukraine.
Putin reacted strongly.
He “noted it would be a mistake that our ancestors would see as a grave error. A lot of mistakes have been made in the past 30 years, and we would better avoid more mistakes in this situation,” Ushakov said.
Russia’s demands are to be discussed during the talks in Geneva, but it remains unclear what, if anything,
Biden would be willing to offer Putin in exchange for defusing the crisis.
Draft security documents Moscow submitted demand that Nato deny membership to Ukraine and other former Soviet countries and roll back military deployments in Central and Eastern Europe.
The US and its allies have refused to offer Russia the kind of guarantees on Ukraine that Putin wants, citing Nato’s principle that membership is open to any qualifying country. They agreed, however, to hold talks with Russia to discuss its concerns.
The security proposal by Moscow has raised the question of whether Putin is making unrealistic demands in the expectation of a Western rejection that would give him a pretext to invade.
Steven Pifer, who served as US ambassador to Ukraine in the Clinton administration, said the Biden administration could engage on some elements of Russia’s draft document if Moscow is serious about talks.
Meanwhile, key Nato members have made clear there is no appetite for expanding the alliance in the near future. The US and allies could also be receptive to language in the Russians’ draft document calling for establishing new consultative mechanisms, such as the Nato-Russia Council and a hotline between Nato and Russia.
“The draft treaty’s proposed bar on any Nato military activity in Ukraine, eastern Europe, the Caucasus, or Central Asia is an overreach, but some measures to limit military exercises and activities on a reciprocal basis might be possible,” Pifer, now a senior fellow at Brookings Institution, wrote in an analysis.
Biden and Putin, who met in Geneva in June to discuss an array of tensions in the US-Russia relationship, are not expected to take part in the January talks.
Last week, Russia test-fired Zircon hypersonic missiles, a move Russian officials said was meant to help make Russia’s push for security guarantees “more convincing”.
US intelligence last month determined Russian planning was under way for a possible military offensive that could begin as soon as early 2022, but Putin had yet to determine whether to move forward with it.
Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s Security and Defence Council, said his country believed there was no immediate threat of a major Russian invasion.
“Our experts say the Russian Federation just physically can’t mount a big invasion of our territory.
“There is a time period needed for preparations.”