Moscow, Washington start talks to avoid conflict in Ukraine

Published on : 01/09/2022 – 07:42

Between reciprocal warnings and mutual agreement on a diplomatic outcome, Washington and Moscow are meeting, from Sunday, January 9 in the evening, in Geneva, to find a solution to the situation. in Ukraine.

It is through a face-to-face meeting between the Deputy Foreign Ministers of the two rival powers, the American Wendy Sherman and the Russian Sergei Riabkov, that this high-risk diplomatic week begins. It will continue with a NATO-Russia meeting on Wednesday in Brussels then a meeting on Thursday in Vienna of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), to include Europeans who fear being marginalized.

A senior White House official said the Russians and Americans “would likely have a first conversation on Sunday evening,” before holding their “main meeting on Monday” in Switzerland.

The West and Kiev accuse the Russians of having massed nearly 100,000 troops on the Ukrainian border for a potential invasion, and have threatened Russian President Vladimir Putin with “massive” and unprecedented sanctions if he attacks again the neighboring country.

Measures that could go as far as cutting Russia off from the cogs of global finance or preventing the entry into service of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline dear to the Kremlin.

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Their aim is to show that they are more determined this time than in 2014, when Moscow annexed Ukrainian Crimea without the American-European alliance managing to reverse it.

Russian demands “unacceptable”

Vladimir Putin, who has met twice with his American counterpart Joe Biden since the start of this new crisis, warned that new sanctions would be a “colossal mistake”, and in turn threatened a “military response” and technique “in case” of maintaining the very clearly aggressive line “of its rivals.

Above all, he imposed and obtained to extend the dialogue to several of his demands which are nevertheless seen as so many red lines by the West.

Because the Kremlin affirms that it is the West which provokes Russia by stationing the soldiers at its gates or by arming the Ukrainian soldiers who fight pro-Russian separatists in Donbass, in the east of Ukraine. He therefore calls for a major treaty excluding Ukraine’s entry into NATO and the withdrawal of American soldiers from the most eastern countries of the Atlantic Alliance.

However, not only do the Americans claim that they are not ready to reduce their troops in Poland or the Baltic countries, but on the contrary they threaten to reinforce them if the Russians go on the offensive.

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“The risk of a new conflict is real,” warned NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Friday, noting that Moscow was putting forward “unacceptable” demands while increasing threats if they “are not accepted”.

“It is certainly part of their strategy to present a list of absolutely inadmissible demands and then claim that the other side is not playing the game and use that as a justification for an aggression”, added the head of the American diplomacy, Antony Blinken. But he assured that the United States would not let itself be “distracted” by the “debate on NATO” demanded by Vladimir Putin, because “the hot topic” is “his aggression against Ukraine”.

EU wants to participate in negotiations

While believing that it would be “very difficult to make real progress” with “a gun to Ukraine’s temple”, the US Secretary of State extended his hand to Russia, assuring that a “diplomatic solution “was” still possible “if she wanted to.

For John Herbst, former American ambassador to Ukraine, the Russian military deployment is a “gigantic bluff” from Vladimir Poutine to win concessions. “As long as the Biden administration remains at least as steadfast as it is now,” the thinker from the Atlantic Council think tank said, “that should be enough to stop Putin from invading Ukraine, but I’m not ruling out an operation. more limited “.

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Beyond the Ukrainian crisis, Washington hopes to take advantage of the talks to put US-Russian relations, at their lowest since the end of the Cold War, on more predictable tracks. And maybe get some progress on other issues, like disarmament.

But from Paris to Berlin via Brussels, calls have multiplied to make a real place at the negotiating table for the countries of the Old Continent, and more particularly for the European Union – against the Kremlin which seems to want to favor the head -Russian-American head-to-head.

A test for the United States of Joe Biden, which, despite the promises of consultation, scalded their European allies by giving the impression of going it alone on Afghanistan or the anti-China strategy. “There will be nothing in Europe without Europe,” promised Antony Blinken.

With AFP