US, Russia see difficult talks ahead
Blinken hoping for a short-term deal to de-escalate tensions
WASHINGTON — With the fate of Ukraine and potentially broader postCold War European stability at stake, the United States and Russia are holding critical strategic talks that could shape the future of not only their relationship but the relationship between the U.S. and its NATO allies.
Though the immediacy of the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine will top the agenda in a series of high-level meetings that are scheduled to get underway Monday, there is a litany of festering but largely unrelated disputes, ranging from arms control to cybercrime and diplomatic issues, for Washington and Moscow to overcome if tensions are to ease. And the recent deployment of Russian troops to Kazakhstan may cast a shadow over the entire exercise.
With much at risk and both warning of dire consequences of failure, the two sides have been positioning themselves for what will be a nearly unprecedented flurry of activity in Europe this week. Yet the wide divergence in their opening positions bodes ill for any type of speedy resolution, and levels of distrust appear higher than at any point since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday that he doesn’t expect any breakthroughs in the coming week. Instead, he said a more likely positive outcome would be an agreement to de-escalate tensions in the short term and return to talks at an appropriate time in the future. But the U.S. will have to see a de-escalation for there to be actual progress.
“It’s very hard to see that happening when there’s an ongoing escalation when Russia has a gun to the head of Ukraine with 100,000 troops near its borders, the possibility of doubling that on very short order,” Blinken said on ABC’s “This Week.”
U.S. officials Saturday unveiled some details of the administration’s stance, which seem to fall well short of Russian demands. The officials said the U.S. is open to discussions on curtailing possible future deployments of offensive missiles in Ukraine and putting limits on American and NATO military exercises in Eastern Europe if Russia is willing to back off on Ukraine.
But they also said Russia will be hit hard with economic sanctions should it intervene in Ukraine. In addition to direct sanctions on Russian entities, those penalties could include restrictions on products exported from the U.S. to Russia and potentially foreign-made products subject to U.S. jurisdiction.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who will lead Russia’s delegation at the Geneva talks, responded harshly to Blinken’s statement.
“Demands of the United States and other NATO countries that we carry out some de-escalation measures on our territory are excluded from the discussion. This is a non-starter in the literal sense of the word,” Ryabkov told the Tass news agency.
He added: “The talks are going to be difficult.”
Russia wants the talks initially to produce formally binding security guarantees for itself with a pledge that NATO will not further expand eastward and the removal of U.S. troops and weapons from parts of Europe. But the U.S. and its allies say those are non-starters intentionally designed by Moscow to distract and divide.
In a bid to forestall efforts by Russia to sow discord in the West, the Biden administration has stressed that neither Ukraine nor Europe more broadly will be excluded from any discussion of Ukraine’s or Europe’s security.
Biden administration officials allow that neither topic can be ignored when senior American and Russian diplomats meet in Geneva ahead of larger, more inclusive meetings in Brussels and Vienna on Wednesday and Thursday.
“We fully expect that the Russian side will make public comments following the meeting on Monday that will not reflect the true nature of the discussions that took place,” said one senior U.S. official who will participate in the talks. The official spoke on condition of anonymity.
That official and others have urged allies to view with “extreme skepticism” anything Moscow says about the so-called Strategic Stability Talks and wait until they are briefed by U.S. participants to form opinions.
Blinken has accused Russia of mounting a full-scale disinformation campaign designed to blame Ukraine, NATO and particularly the United States for the current tensions and undercut Western unity. He said Russian President Vladimir Putin is engaged in an all-out war on the truth that ignores Russia’s own provocative and destabilizing actions over the course of the past decade.
Russia, meanwhile, has spun a narrative that it is a threatened victim of Western aggression and wants quick results from the meetings despite what appear insurmountable differences.
Putin has repeatedly warned that Moscow will have to take unspecified “military-technical measures” if the West stonewalls Russia’s demands, and affirmed that NATO membership for Ukraine or the deployment of alliance weapons there is a red line for Moscow that it wouldn’t allow the West to cross.