Whereas the tone of the decision was constructive, in keeping with the Kremlin aide, Mr. Putin repeated his claims that Russia felt threatened by an encroaching NATO. He stated that Russia would “conduct itself as america would behave if offensive weapons had been close to america.”
The Biden administration, just like the Trump administration earlier than it, has supplied lots of of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in help to the Ukrainian navy to fund what it characterizes as purely defensive arms, together with anti-tank missiles to repel a threatened Russian invasion. Russia has referred to as these offensive weapons that threaten its personal forces.
Mr. Ushakov stated that “for now, it’s not clear” if the 2 sides had been shifting towards a compromise however stated Russia had not particular deadline for talks.
An American official, briefing reporters on the situation of anonymity, stated the decision “set the kind of tone and tenor for the diplomatic engagements” to return in January. However he declined to “get into the territory of beginning to negotiate in public,” saying that “regardless of the Russian facet has determined is its greatest tactic and technique when it comes to its public pronouncements, we actually believed, primarily based on previous precedents, that it’s most constructive to have these conversations privately.”
Mr. Biden and Mr. Putin had radically completely different targets going into the decision. By massing troops on the border after which publishing two draft treaties that had echoes of Chilly Warfare-era calls for, Mr. Putin created a global disaster and made plain his want to wind again the clock 30 years, to only earlier than the collapse of the Soviet Union. He demanded that Ukraine halt its embrace of the West, that america and its allies halt all navy exercise in Japanese Europe and Central Asia and that NATO freeze its enlargement to the east and roll again navy deployments close to Russia’s borders.
In Washington and European capitals, many of the proposed treaty language was instantly rejected as an effort to redraw the post-Chilly Warfare boundaries of Europe, and, with the specter of invasion, pressure Ukraine again into Moscow’s orbit.
But regardless of Russia’s broken financial system and diminished capabilities, Mr. Putin is dealing from a powerful hand: He demonstrated in 2014, with the annexation of Crimea, his willingness to choose off Russian-speaking territory. And he’s assured that america and its NATO allies is not going to commit forces to the duty of pushing again.
