“I don’t think there’s a lot of carry-over from [Middle East peace efforts] to Ukraine and Russia,” Ben Friedman of the Washington-based think tank Defense Priorities told RFE/RL.
“Even if they do convince [Russia] that they’re going to sanction them more, put a little bit more pressure on them, it’s not going to make much difference,” he added. “It’s difficult because we’ve already sanctioned them so heavily that there’s not a lot of shots left to fire.”
Friedman said that, earlier in the conflict, Washington had instead sought to use its considerable leverage over Ukraine to force concessions from Kyiv.
“I don’t think [Putin] really got much out of it. I mean, you know, it did sort of turn the Trump administration ultimately against him to a degree, that whole series of events,” Friedman said.
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