For those of us living in Washington and following the internal political game, the video call between Presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin was a scary moment.
Would Biden stand up to Putin as before, or would he follow the appeasement ideas previously floated by Putin apologists here in Washington? Such ideas have found support in the all-dominant National Security Council, though so far not in the State Department and in the Pentagon.
The immediate aftermath of the video call on Dec. 7 brought relief. Uncharacteristically, the White House immediately delivered a brief but hard-hitting read out, while the Kremlin took almost three hours to say something. The U.S. wanted Russia to stay out of Ukraine, while both were evidently favorable to future talks.
Despite this, the next two days saw the White House appear to lose ground. Worse, Biden allowed Putin to set the agenda as if he had no demands himself. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan set the tone in his press briefing.
The U.S. would persuade the new German government to stop Nord Stream 2 in case Russia attacked Ukraine. However, according to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2020, it should have been subject to sanctions from the start of 2021. The Biden administration waived it as an apparent concession to former Social Democratic German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who is now chairman of Nord Stream 1 and 2 and Rosneft.
Additionally, the German-U.S. Statement on Nord Stream 2 of July 21 promised sanctions if Russia were to use energy as a weapon, stating; “The United States and Germany are united in their determination to hold Russia to account for its aggression and malign activities by imposing costs via sanctions and other tools.”
Russia has done so, but the U.S. and Germany have taken no action. They need to fulfil their commitment if they are to avoid provoking Putin to a war, but now Sullivan has averted sanctions on this Russian geopolitical project once again.
What Putin wants most of all is a Yalta II, another agreement with the United States and perhaps some other major Western power about Eastern Europe over the heads of all the East Europeans. Sadly, Biden suggested bilateral Russian-U.S. negotiations and then called the leaders of West European countries France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom. Eventually, Ukraine and the East European Bucharest nine managed to get in on the act.
So why is the White House apparently giving Putin what he wants? Are the National Security Council staffers so inexperienced? Don’t they know that Putin’s prime ambition is to decide the fate of Eastern Europe without the East Europeans.
Biden is no soft touch, and he knows Ukraine, Russia and Eastern Europe well. He is also aware that he needs to turn the conversation around as his video call appears to have shown. However, rather than focusing on Putin’s aggressive demands, Biden, Ukraine and the West should hammer home their many justified demands of Putin that are based in international law.
First of all, Putin should withdraw his offensive forces from Ukraine’s border, Crimea and Donbas. The Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) used to have a sound system of transparency and preannouncement of military exercises of significant size. Why has the West let up on those standards? It is time to demand their restoration.
“The West needs to enforce the message that Russia is the main source of destabilization in the former Soviet Union.“
It must persistently demand that Russia withdraws its occupying troops from Donbas, Transnistria, Abkhazia & South Ossetia. Russia has repeatedly made international agreements that it will not violate national borders, thus the West needs to persistently repeat what Russia itself has committed itself to. It has done so in many forms before and should do so again.
The key Soviet demand in the original Helsinki Final Act of 1975 was that existing borders in Europe should be recognized.
It reads: “The participating States regard as inviolable all one another's frontiers as well as the frontiers of all States in Europe and therefore they will refrain now and in the future from assaulting these frontiers. Accordingly, they will also refrain from any demand for, or act of, seizure and usurpation of part or all of the territory of any participating State.” Russia as the successor of the USSR has never revoked this legal commitment.
When the Soviet Union was dissolved in December 1991, the non-aggressive Russian President Boris Yeltsin guaranteed to preserve existing borders between all twelve remaining former Soviet republics. (The Baltic nations had already left in August 1991.)
Additionally, in 1997, Russia and Ukraine concluded a bilateral Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership. Its key Article 2 states “In accord with provisions of the UN Charter and the obligations of the Final Act on Security and Cooperation in Europe, the High Contracting Parties shall respect each other′s territorial integrity and reaffirm the inviolability of the borders existing between them.” In 2014, Russia violated this treaty, which it revoked after the fact.
Needless to say, Putin’s Kremlin is no friend of Ukraine.
Russia has made many international commitments that it regularly violates, not only about borders, but also about human rights. In November 1990, the OSCE adopted the Charter of Paris for a New Europe. It is probably the finest document that Europe has ever embraced.
The many signatures committed “to build, consolidate and strengthen democracy as the only system of government of our nations” as well as human rights and the rule of law. Russia has never revoked this commitment that it inherited from the Soviet Union, and so it should rightfully be reminded about it.
Yet, at present, the finest Russian human rights organization, Memorial, claims there are at least 410 political prisoners in Russia. Consequently, Memorial has been labeled a “foreign agent” which, as Russian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dmitri Muratov so rightly pointed out, really means “enemy of the people.”
Alexei Navalny, Russia’s greatest present hero, has delivered a list of 35 top Russian collaborators who should be sanctioned. The United States, the EU and the U.K. should do so systematically until Navalny is released.
Why is Biden appearing to go soft on the ever-worsening human rights situation in Russia? It would also be a good idea for Russia to stop the torturing of imprisoned Ukrainians in Russian-occupied Donbas. That would take care of Putin’s call for better human rights in Ukraine.
“Instead of revoking its many eminent commitments within the OSCE before Putin took over, Russia has tried to undermine the OSCE and render it ineffective in recent years.“
The latest example is Putin’s demand for bilateral negotiations on European security with the U.S., Biden should tell Putin that the OSCE was created for such discussions and refuse to accept any new bilateral forum.
The U.S. has already delivered threats of substantial financial and personal sanctions against Putin and his circle if he dares to attack Ukraine in an overt or hybrid fashion. These threats must remain credible.
The ultimate question to the U.S. and its allies is: Why talk to a party that has developed lies into its modus operandi and which violates just about all international agreements that it has concluded? No word stated by Putin is worth the paper it is written on.
Frankly, the only relevant response is to swiftly deliver more arms to Ukraine to reinforce its defenses against a possible Russian attack to reduce the probability of such an attack. A strong Ukrainian defense is the best peacemaking measure.
Anders Åslund is an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University and a senior fellow at the Stockholm Free World Forum.
