U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinker, 78, warned Sergey Lavrov that the U.S. would not back down ahead of talks on the sidelines of the Arctic Council meetinf in Reykjavik, Iceland. Blinken thinks he’s going to throw down the gauntlet to the Rusian Federation is sadly mistaken in his approach. Dredging up allegations of Russian meddling in U.S. elections, past hacking or more recent ransomware of Colonial Pipeline won’t go anywhere, especially ahead of a U.S.-Russian summit schedule in June with Russian President Vladimir Putin. President Joe Biden, 78, still hasn’t gotten over insulting Putin March 16, calling the longest serving Russian president a “soulless killer.” Blinker’s belligerent rhetoric with Russia and China in the firs 100 days of the Biden presidency has driving U.S.-Russian and U.S.-Chinese relations to the lowest point since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
Blinken has complained about Putin’s intimidation in Ukraine, deploying some 50,000 Russian troops near the Ukraine border on eastern Ukraine’s Russian-speaking Donbass region. Blinken knows that Putin’s reaction was to 43-year-old Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky threatening to join NATO, or hold joint military exercises. Biden and Blinker were both working as Vice President and Deputy Secretary of State in the Obama administration when Putin invaded the Crimean Peninsula March 1, 2014. While former President Barack Obama and Biden consulted with NATO and the U.N., they did nothing to stop Putin’s annexation of Crimea. Putin has said clearly that any NATO or U.S. involvement in Ukraine would be a red line, prompting possible annexation of Russia-speaking enclaves in Donabass. Zelensky continues to threaten Moscow with NATO involvement.
Blinken carries Biden’s attitude that that the U.S. calls the shots when it comes to global affairs. Whether admitted to or not, Putin’s March 1, 2014 annexation of Crimea left no doubt in the international community that no one challenges Russia’s military might. Former President George W. Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney found out the hard way watching Putin invade Georgia’s Russian-speaking South Ossetia and Abkhazia Aug. 7, 2008. Bush and Cheney refused to intervene militarily to help former Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili. Blinker won’t bring up to Lavrov what happened while Putin hosted the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014. One day before the closing ceremony Feb. 22, 2014, a CIA-backed coup toppled the duly elected Kremlin-backed Ukrainian government of Viktor Yanukovych. Putin responded quickly annexing Ukraine one week later.
Blinken better recalibrate his “leader of the Free World” attitude before meeting with Lavrov in Reykjavik. Lavrov, like Putin, has been on the world stage for a long time and won’t respond well to intimidation or threats of new sanctions. Blinken has a perfect opportunity to start mending fences with the Russian Federation but only if he parks his attitude at the door and does a lot of listening to Lavrov. Biden and Putin’s summit will go nowhere unless Biden and Blinken stop hurling accusations at Russia and work hard toward finding common ground. With the latest Hamas-Israeli war raging in Gaza, Russia could be very helpful in getting Hamas to back down. State Department officials said Blinken will share with Lavrov Biden’s “resolve to protect U.S. citizens and act firmly in defense of U.S. interests in response to actions by Russia that harm us or our allies,” a real nonstarter for diplomatic talks.
Blinken needs to take off the table the accusatory tone against the Russian Federation. Putin has seen enough of U.S. Russia-bashing since taking office. Putin got along well with former President Donald Trump because he kept things business like, not slamming the Kremlin about human rights abuses. Biden and Blinken have demanded that Putin release Russian dissident 44-year-old Alexi Navalny, who’s currently serving out a two-year-eight month prison sentence in a Russian penal colony. Navalny is purely a Russian internal affair, dealing with a known revolutionary with a covert organization seeking to topple Putin’s government. Yet Biden and Blinken have called for his immediate release from prison, admitting that they agree with Navalny’s seditious activity. So, when Blinken meets with Lavrov, he should avoid the anti-Russian accusations and meddling in Kremlin affairs.
Putin and Lavrov are acutely aware of Blinken’s recent visit to Kiev, where he met with Zelensky and promised U.S. support against Russian aggression. If Blinken wants to begin to repair U.S.-Russian relations he should focus on economic and political cooperation, especially when it comes to the Middle East. Putin has outsized clout when it comes to dealing with Hamas, something the U.S. doesn’t have. Lavrov said May 12 that he wanted to urgently convene the Quartet, involving the U.S., U.N., EU and Russia to deal with the latest Mideast skirmish. If Blinkern goes over old ground, accusing the Kremlin of meddling in U.S. democracy, the meeting in Raykjavik will head south quickly. Biden and Blinken can’t try to bully the Russian Federation with the threat of more sanctions without further damaging U.S.-Russian relations. Enlisting Putin’s help in the latest Gaza war would be a good first step.
