U.S. President Joseph R. Biden Jr. spoke on April 13 with Russian President Vladimir Putin amid the Kremlin’s escalation of its war against Ukraine.
According to a White House readout of the call, “they discussed a number of regional and global issues, including the intent of the United States and Russia to pursue a strategic stability dialogue on a range of arms control and emerging security issues, building on the extension of the New START Treaty. President Biden also made clear that the United States will act firmly in defense of its national interests in response to Russia’s actions, such as cyber intrusions and election interference. President Biden emphasized the United States’ unwavering commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. The President voiced our concerns over the sudden Russian military build-up in occupied Crimea and on Ukraine’s borders and called on Russia to de-escalate tensions. President Biden reaffirmed his goal of building a stable and predictable relationship with Russia consistent with U.S. interests and proposed a summit meeting in a third country in the coming months to discuss the full range of issues facing the United States and Russia.”
The Kremlin, in a statement, continued to portray the issue as “Ukraine’s internal political crisis.”
Russia has amassed close to 100,000 troops along Ukraine’s northern, eastern and southern border, heightening fears in Ukraine and among the nation’s allies that Putin is planning a deeper military strike into Ukrainian territory. The build-up has been accompanied by increasing ceasefire violations by Russian-backed forces in the eastern Donbas. At least 28 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in action in 2021. Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, seizing the Crimean peninsula. Its forces attempted to instigate uprisings in southern and eastern parts of Ukraine. Today, Russia controls 7 percent of Ukrainian territory, including parts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, besides Crimea.
At least 13,000 Ukrainians have been killed in Russia’s war, triggering Western sanctions, but leaving the Kremlin undeterred.
Moreover, before the Biden call, the Kremlin had been ratcheting up the war rhetoric. One of the government’s top mouthpieces, Margaret Simonyan of Russia Today, even warned that war is “inevitable” between the United States and Russia.
Afterward, however, the Russian ruble rallied on news of a possible Biden-Putin summit.
“The ruble is rallying hard – the markets are loving the idea of a Putin-Biden summit as it represents a win for Putin, and maybe will encourage him to de-escalate in Ukraine,” wrote Timothy Ash, a London-based analyst. “Putin gets exactly what he wants – a great power summit.”
Ash also said: “It looks like the messaging to Putin is the sanctions for Solar Winds (cyberattack) and election meddling are a done deal – ‘you did it, we caught you, you pay the consequences with a new set of sanctions. On the other stuff – let’s talk. I know you have always craved a Yalta 2 and I am giving you a reward here, a gift of a summit that you so crave. But before then back off Ukraine.’ In past summit meetings, Putin has tended to escalate in the run-up to extract leverage. Let’s see if he still feels the need to do that in Ukraine. I guess both sides will want to go into talks from a position of strength – hence the need for Biden to roll out sanctions before the actual meeting. Otherwise, Biden just looks like a soft touch. Putin drives his tanks up to the border with Ukraine and Biden rolls over, pulling sanctions and gifting Putin a summit.”
Russia has adopted belligerent rhetoric against Ukraine in recent weeks.
During an April 13 press conference in Brussels with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said that Russia needs “to understand that Ukraine belongs to the world of democracies, to the Western world, and the West will not allow Russia to shatter Ukrainian democracy and sovereignty. This is the message, the very clear and very simple message, that our friends and partners can convey to Russia. Ukraine is not part of the Russian world and will never be considered as such.”
Before the Biden-Putin call, Ash wrote of the US and Russia: “Both sides are trying to call the others’ bluff, with a big risk of miscalculation. At the weekend. Putin lost the first hand, as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sided with Ukraine, and will continue to supply drone technology, albeit Turkey will pay the price with the tourism bans. But Erdogan will hope this brings him closer to Biden – still expecting that call. It will also mark Ukraine and Turkey out as natural regional strategic allies, against Russia. Biden seems to be trying to see Putin at each step. Let’s see who blinks first. Arguably both the Ukrainian and Russian sides want now to move beyond the Minsk 2 and Normandy format talks. But Ukraine wants the US to join France and Germany in these, against Russia, while Putin I think just wants to sit down with Biden, alone, and divide up the world into spheres of influence in some bigger deal. Someone has to blink, give concessions.”
