U.S. and Russia Hold Their Ground as Ukraine Standoff Drags On
By Henry Meyer and Peter Martin, January 21, 2022
There
was no breakthrough in the standoff over Ukraine after the top U.S. and
Russian diplomats emerged separately from their meeting in Geneva only
to retread old ground and agree to keep talking.
It
was a bruising week for the U.S. after President Joe Biden slipped up
in a news conference and laid bare divisions among his allies over what
they would do in case of a “minor incursion” by Russia into Ukraine.
That left Secretary of State Antony Blinken in the uncomfortable
position of clarifying the U.S. position as he went into his one-to-one
with counterpart Sergei Lavrov.
Both
men essentially talked past each other, reinstating demands that are
non-starters. Russia wants assurances that Ukraine will never join NATO
and essentially wants an entire rethink of the post-war military
alliance. The U.S. is trying to get on the same page with the European
Union on how to de-escalate tensions and convince Russia to take its
threat of sanctions seriously.
It’s
far from clear that Russia does. The U.S. will soon send written
responses to Russia addressing its concerns, while Lavrov dismissed
Western “hysteria” over Ukraine and repeated that Moscow has no plans to
attack its neighbor. The U.S. has warned that 100,000 troops massed
near the border is a sign Russia is preparing a military intervention
into Ukraine.
“If
Russia wants to begin to convince the world that it has no aggressive
intent toward Ukraine, a very good place to start would be
deescalating,” Blinken said Friday at the end of a three-day European
trip.
Europe and the
U.S. have been unable to hash out detailed responses to various
scenarios that Russia might pursue in Ukraine, and options like sending
NATO troops to the country aren’t on the table. The European Union has
also shied away from discussing specific sanctions that could be imposed
if Russia mounts an invasion.
The situation remains extremely tense.
U.S.
officials are now weighing whether to evacuate family members of
diplomats stationed in Ukraine, according to people familiar with the
matter, in a precautionary move that signals the situation could
deteriorate further.
Under
the plan, non-essential staff would be able to leave voluntarily while
family members would be ordered to return home. An announcement may come
within days, according to the people, who asked not to be identified
before a decision is reached.
The
Blinken-Lavrov meeting comes after Biden and his aides spent much of
Thursday seeking to clean up after the president’s blunder. As U.S.
officials worked to reassure European allies on their resolve, Biden
laid out his clearest line yet on what action would trigger serious
punishment.
“If any, any assembled Russian units move across the Ukrainian border, that is an invasion,” he said.
The
U.S. and Europe are warning that further aggressive Russian moves could
potentially start the worst conflict in Europe in decades. While Russia
denies it plans an invasion, the U.S. and its European allies say
President Vladimir Putin’s intentions are unclear. Russian officials say
the West is the aggressor.
“What NATO is now doing toward Ukraine clearly shows that NATO sees Ukraine as part of its sphere of influence,” Lavrov said.
Calling
it a “critical moment,” Blinken said at the start of their talks that
the U.S. wanted to “test whether the path of diplomacy and dialogue
remains open.” Lavrov said the talks would allow the U.S. “to come up
with concrete answers to all our proposals and put forward your own
counter-proposals if need be.”
Russia
is demanding binding security guarantees that would bar Ukraine from
ever joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and require the
alliance to roll back its forces to positions they held in 1997, before
central and eastern European nations joined NATO. The U.S. and its NATO
allies have rejected those demands.
Russia
is continuing a military buildup, sending troops and armor to within a
few miles of the Ukrainian border in neighboring Belarus for joint
military drills that start Feb. 10. Two divisions of S-400 air-defense
systems are also being dispatched to Belarus, Russia’s Defense Ministry
said Friday, according to the Interfax news service.
Putin
and Finnish President Sauli Niinisto spoke on Friday on geopolitics,
including events in Ukraine. It was Niinisto who called Putin and spoke
of “his grave concern over the situation and emphasized the necessity of
upholding peace in Europe.”
Meanwhile,
the speaker of Russia’s lower house of parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin,
said he plans consultations next week with the leaders of party factions
in the State Duma on a draft appeal for Putin to recognize areas of
eastern Ukraine seized by Kremlin-backed separatists in 2014 as
independent states.
The
appeal submitted by Communist Party lawmakers says recognition is
“morally justified” and would enable Russia to give security guarantees
to the separatist-held territories.
Russia
has already issued hundreds of thousands of passports to residents of
the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk peoples’ republics.