The head of the RIAC explained that Putin and Biden “fixed their “red lines” on Ukraine”
The United States does not have the ability to defend Kyiv in the event of a hypothetical Russian military invasion of Ukraine.
The director general of the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC), Andrei Kortunov, writes about this in Kommersant, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports, assessing the latest online summit of Presidents Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden.
The expert points out that the conversation turned out to be difficult for each of the parties.
“Vladimir Putin was fully aware that any Russian military operation on the territory of Ukraine or even a change in the political status quo in the Donbass (for example, Moscow’s diplomatic recognition of the DPR and LPR) would be fraught with extremely large-scale Western sanctions that would be destructive for the Russian economy. In turn, Joe Biden could not help but understand that in the event of a large-scale Russian-Ukrainian military conflict, the United States would simply not be able to protect Kyiv. Just as Washington failed to protect the regime of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani,” the article notes.
According to the author, as a result, “the parties tried to fix their “red lines” regarding Ukraine.” He also wonders whether the Russian Federation and the United States will be able to do their homework on Ukraine, making de-escalation irreversible.
The head of the RIAC believes that for the Kremlin, doing its homework means, firstly, the need to reduce military activity along the Russian-Ukrainian border and, secondly, the resumption of quadripartite negotiations on Donbass in the Normandy format, to which the United States can also join, which would allow Biden to claim the summit as a major foreign policy achievement.
“In turn, the White House’s homework on Ukraine is the need to send a clear signal to Kyiv that the Biden administration will not support any attempts to resolve the Donbass problem by force. And in the event of such attempts, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky could easily find himself in the position of his miscalculated colleague, former Georgian leader Mikheil Saakashvili, who at one time clearly overestimated the readiness of the United States and NATO to come to the aid of Tbilisi in a military confrontation with Moscow,” the political scientist emphasizes.
He is convinced that an unambiguous signal to Kyiv from Washington would allow Putin not only to announce progress in dialogue with Washington, but also to justify Moscow’s reciprocal restraint.
“Military assistance to Ukraine from the United States will continue in any case, but specific forms of such assistance could demonstrate Washington’s readiness to take into account Moscow’s concerns about Kiev’s possible attempts to implement the idea of a “small victorious war,” Kortunov concluded.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.