Editor’s note: John J. Sullivan served as United States Ambassador to Russia from December 2019 to October 2022. He previously served as United States Under Secretary of State. And is now a partner at Mayer Brown LLP and a Fellow Emeritus of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. Read more reviews on CNN.
CNN
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Almost exactly a year ago, I sat in my office at the US Embassy in Moscow, reading reports of Russia’s brutal military assault on Ukraine. I was numbed – but not surprised – by the gravity of what was unfolding.
For weeks I had been telling everyone I could reach that Russian President Vladimir Putin was about to unleash a war on the European continent, the scale of which had not been seen since World War II.
Although confident in my pre-war assessment, I was inconsolable. For two years, I had worked hard as US Ambassador to make even modest progress in the few areas where dialogue was possible with the Russians.
My approach was reaffirmed following President Joe Biden’s meeting in Geneva with Putin in June 2021. No one in our US delegation in Geneva was under any illusion that we would definitely make progress on any particular issue, but all agreed that it was in the interests of the United States. States to try.
The engagement with the Russians after the summit had barely begun when there was a seismic shift. The bloody history of Russia taking territory from Ukraine in 2014-2015 had clouded our relationship with Moscow but not broken it.
While relations were dire, we were still looking for ways to stabilize our engagement with the world’s only other nuclear superpower. What U.S. intelligence officials told senior politicians in late 2021 about Russia’s preparations for an invasion of Ukraine, however, changed everything we had been working on.
Immediately, our engagement was reduced to the serious Russian threat against Ukraine and to the “security guarantees” that Russia demanded from the United States and NATO. It appeared to me that the Russians had no intention of negotiating in good faith.
Russian interlocutors read their talking points and do not engage in real dialogue. Guards from the Russian security services monitored every meeting and every phone call. The Russians were engaging in a diplomatic charade to lay the groundwork for an invasion that Putin had already decided to launch. The only question was when.
Once started, Russia’s war of aggression completely upended what little remained of its relationship with the United States – and many other countries. We learned that history was not over and, indeed, February 24 changed history. It was not just a brutal war against Ukraine, it was a war against Europe.
The war changed things big and small, from where I lived in Moscow to where Russia stands in the world. I had to move to the Embassy compound because the pace of teleconferences with Washington, combined with an eight-hour time difference, meant I had to be immediately available at all hours.
More importantly, the invasion disrupted the global economy, including energy and grain markets. And more tragically, he massacred thousands of innocent people and caused untold suffering to millions of Ukrainians because of a political choice by Putin in his quest for empire.
In an attempt to defend the indefensible, Putin propagated a false narrative that the invasion was necessary to “denazify” and demilitarize Ukraine. He claimed that Ukraine was engaged in “genocide” against Russians and Russian speakers and was about to attack Russia itself – hence Moscow’s “Special Military Operation”.
This justification for Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine is absurd on its face and has been rejected by overwhelming majorities in the UN General Assembly and the International Court of Justice.
Yet ruthless Russian violence (which has forced nearly 15 million Ukrainians to become refugees or internally displaced), catastrophic missile strikes on civilian targets, and illegal occupation of sovereign Ukrainian territory continue. And all by one country, Russia, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, whose mission is to preserve and defend world peace.
The war is an existential threat to Ukraine and a serious security challenge to Europe, the United States, and our allies and partners around the world. But it’s more than that. Putin’s war threatens to stake a stake in the international system created after World War II, which has so far prevented another world war, and should be fought by any nation that rejects archaic notions of empire and wars of conquest.
This is a looming global problem that will only get worse – the economic toll alone is staggering – until it is stopped and reversed on terms acceptable to Ukraine that will protect its sovereignty and security. .
It’s a tall order as Putin’s special military operation continues with a subtext of nuclear blackmail. Putin’s government will not negotiate or compromise on its war goals, which are the elimination of the kyiv government and the subjugation of the Ukrainian people.
The Russians did not negotiate in good faith before the war and they will not now. There is no “exit ramp” until Putin achieves his long-standing goals.
I say this with a heavy heart, as someone who was a supporter of continuing negotiations with the Russian government even as the downward spiral in our relationship accelerated. I left a comfortable perch on Mahogany Row at the State Department as Under Secretary of State to serve as the United States Ambassador to Moscow and take the lead in these negotiations.
But my perspective, like that of so many others, changed when massive swarms of Russian soldiers, tanks, planes and missiles crossed the international border on February 24 to bludgeon Ukraine and its people. Now is not the time for negotiations. On the other hand, President Biden has correctly indicated that the United States does not want war with Russia.
This raises Lenin’s famous question: what to do? I believe the way forward for the United States is, first, to redouble diplomatic efforts to convince those nations that have not joined in strong support for Ukraine’s defense of the moral, political, legal and military to do so.
Second, vigorously enforce existing sanctions and export controls to starve the Russian military but not the Russian people.
Third, to provide Ukraine with all equipment and supplies, military and otherwise, necessary to expel the invaders from its sovereign territory.
Fourth, have patience and the courage of our collective beliefs (with our allies, partners and others).
Only then will the Russian government realize that the goals of its special military operation cannot and will not be achieved. Only then will the Russian government negotiate in good faith. And only then will peace return to Europe.
cnn
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