By Rajan Menon and Ben Friedman
The virtual meeting between President Biden and Russian leader Vladimir Putin on December 7 didn’t resolve the crisis that began when Russian forces massed around Ukraine’s border, where they currently remain. But Biden’s readiness to engage in further talks with Russia in order to reach an unspecified “accommodation” provides an opportunity for diplomacy to avert a looming disaster.
Russia’s military build-up on Ukraine’s border has two objectives — one is to force a settlement, on its terms, between Kyiv and the Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine’s east, in line with the February 12, 2015, Minsk II Agreement. Moscow’s second but more immediate goal is to pressure NATO to meet a list of demands: a legal guarantee that it will not admit Ukraine to its ranks, essentially a renunciation of the April 3, 2008, Bucharest Summit declaration that all but promised membership; a commitment not to emplace NATO’s troops or strike weapons on Ukrainian territory; a pledge that American weapons capable of striking Russia will not be stationed in states neighboring it; and an agreement to revive the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF Treaty), which President Trump formally exited in August 2019. On Friday, the Russian foreign ministry presented many of these proposals in the form of a draft treaty.
Some experts suggest that Russia’s demands are so extravagant that they are designed to fail and make an invasion of Ukraine seem legitimate. But there remain reasons to believe that Russia still hopes to avoid war, is making an opening bid in a negotiation, and would settle for less than it now demands because it understands that attacking Ukraine could prove costly.
This piece was originally published in Responsible Statecraft on December 20, 2021. Read more HERE.