American experts on Russia demand from Biden to indicate possible sanctions on Russia | News from Germany on world events | Dw

A group of former American security and Russia experts – shortly after the telephone conversation between US and Russian Presidents Joseph Biden and Vladimir Putin – issued a statement urging the American leader to immediately and publicly state what sanctions the Russian side would face if Moscow went to a military escalation in relation to Kiev. This was announced on Friday, December 31st, by the AP agency.

The document was signed, in particular, by former US State Department sanctions coordinator and former US Ambassador to Poland Daniel Fried, ex-head of the US diplomatic mission in Russia Michael McFaul, former NATO First Deputy Secretary General Alexander Vershbow, who at one time also headed the diplomatic mission in RF. In addition, the former US ambassador to Kiev, Stephen Pifer, and John Herbst, who also held this position, were among the signatories. As AP specified, 24 drafters of the statement worked in the administrations of Barack Obama, George W. Bush or Bill Clinton.

“A package of large-scale and painful sanctions”

“We believe the United States should, in close cooperation with its NATO allies and with Ukraine, take immediate steps to influence the Kremlin’s cost-benefit balance (and do so. – Ed.) before the Russian leadership decides on further military escalation, “the authors of the document are sure.

“Such a response should include a package of massive and painful sanctions that will be applied immediately if Russia attacks Ukraine. Ideally, the outline of these sanctions should be presented to Moscow now so that the Kremlin has a clear idea of ​​the scale of the economic blow that it will face.” – the experts indicated.

Telephone conversation between Putin and Biden

Earlier, on the night of December 31, telephone talks between Biden and Putin took place. The conversation lasted about 50 minutes.

During the telephone conversation, the American leader called for a de-escalation of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev and promised that the United States and its allies would “resolutely respond” in the event of an invasion of Russian troops into Ukraine, the White House press service reported after the conversation.

The Kremlin press service indicated that Putin, in a conversation with Biden, called the possibility of adopting large-scale sanctions against Russia in the event of an escalation of the situation around Ukraine “a serious mistake, in fact, threatening a complete rupture of Russian-American relations.”

US President will talk with Ukrainian counterpart

Later, the White House reported that Biden planned to hold a telephone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on January 2. He noted that “he is looking forward to the opportunity to talk with the US President again” in order to coordinate “steps for the sake of peace in Ukraine and security in Europe.”

See also:

• The history of the summits of the leaders of the USSR and Russia with the presidents of the United States

  Face to face

  Joe Biden became the fifth President of the United States to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. In total, the number of different summits between the leaders of the USSR and Russia and the presidents of the United States has exceeded a hundred, and some of them have gone down in the history of world politics. The first face-to-face meeting of Biden and Putin in Geneva in June 2021 did not become a breakthrough, but the very fact that it took place is important, observers note.

• 

  The history of the summits of the leaders of the USSR and Russia with the presidents of the United States

  First visit to the USA

  The first Soviet leader to pay an official visit to the United States was Nikita Khrushchev. In September 1959, he met with US President Dwight D. Eisenhower. It was not possible to reach an agreement on any of the discussed problems. The return visit did not take place because of the scandal with the American U2 spy plane shot down in May 1960 near Sverdlovsk.

• 

  The history of the summits of the leaders of the USSR and Russia with the presidents of the United States

  Agreed to the wall

  Khrushchev’s talks with the new American President, John F. Kennedy, took place on June 4, 1961, at the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna. The main topic was the fate of Berlin and Germany as a whole. The parties fiercely defended their positions and failed to agree on key items of the agenda. Two months later, the Berlin Wall divided the city into eastern and western sections.

• 

  The history of the summits of the leaders of the USSR and Russia with the presidents of the United States

  Discovering Moscow

  Richard Nixon became the first US president to pay an official visit to the USSR. The negotiations held in May 1972 with the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Leonid Brezhnev marked the beginning of a new stage in relations, which was called “detente”. In Moscow, the Agreement on the Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (SALT-1) and the Treaty on the Limitation of Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems (ABM) were signed.

• 

  The history of the summits of the leaders of the USSR and Russia with the presidents of the United States

  On the eve of the war in Afghanistan

  The entry of Soviet troops into Afghanistan in December 1979 caused a new deterioration in Soviet-American relations. Six months earlier, Brezhnev had met in Vienna with the new President of the United States, Jimmy Carter. The negotiations resulted in the signing of the Treaty on the Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (SALT-2), which, among other things, limited the deployment of nuclear weapons in outer space.

• 

  The history of the summits of the leaders of the USSR and Russia with the presidents of the United States

  The end of the “evil empire”

  Relations between Mikhail Gorbachev and US President Ronald Reagan initially went wrong. After the first meeting in Geneva in 1985, one christened another “dinosaur”, the other called a colleague a “die-hard Bolshevik.” That did not prevent them from holding several meetings and signing a number of important documents in the field of disarmament. Arriving in Moscow in 1988, Reagan declared that he no longer considered the USSR an “evil empire.”

• 

  The history of the summits of the leaders of the USSR and Russia with the presidents of the United States

  Seasickness summit

  A two-day meeting between Mikhail Gorbachev and the new American leader, George W. Bush, took place in 1989 in Malta aboard the Soviet cruise ship Maxim Gorky, docked in the port of Valletta. Despite a strong storm, the summit opened a fundamentally new stage in relations between the two countries. In particular, for the first time in history, a joint press conference was held between the two leaders.

• 

  The history of the summits of the leaders of the USSR and Russia with the presidents of the United States

  Point in the Cold War

  The meeting of the first Russian President Boris Yeltsin with George W. Bush in the United States in the winter of 1992 summed up the 46-year Cold War. A declaration was signed in which it was stated that Russia and the United States no longer regard each other as possible adversaries. A year later, in Moscow, politicians signed the Treaty on the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (START II).

• 

  The history of the summits of the leaders of the USSR and Russia with the presidents of the United States

  Friend bill

  Boris Yeltsin and the next President of the United States, Bill Clinton, were on friendly terms. They met several times. In 1997 in Helsinki, during the last summit of the two leaders, Clinton persuaded Yeltsin not to impede NATO expansion, promising to admit Russia to the G7, promote WTO accession, and help restructure Russia’s debt in the Paris Club of creditors.

• 

  The history of the summits of the leaders of the USSR and Russia with the presidents of the United States

  On Russia’s accession to NATO

  In 2000, Bill Clinton came to Moscow, where he met with the new President of Russia, Vladimir Putin. No important documents were signed. The main sensation was voiced by Putin many years later. In an interview with American film director Oliver Stone, the Russian leader said that he suggested that Clinton consider the option of Russia’s joining NATO, and he was not against it.

• 

  The history of the summits of the leaders of the USSR and Russia with the presidents of the United States

  He is the king

  In November 2001, Putin became the first foreign leader to visit not only the ranch of US President George W. Bush in Texas, but also attended a closed CIA briefing for the head of the White House. At the same time, the cooling in relations between Russia and the United States began precisely under Bush Jr., who already in 2006 declared: “Putin is no longer a democrat. He is a tsar. We have lost him.”

• 

  The history of the summits of the leaders of the USSR and Russia with the presidents of the United States

  Burger reboot

  A brief period of warming in Russian-American relations fell on Dmitry Medvedev’s presidency in the Russian Federation. In September 2009, he visited the United States, visited Twitter headquarters and started his microblogging, received the latest iPhone from Apple CEO Steve Jobs and had breakfast with US President Barack Obama at a burger shop. And on April 8, 2010 in Prague, Medvedev and Obama signed the START III Treaty.

• 

  The history of the summits of the leaders of the USSR and Russia with the presidents of the United States

  It blew cold

  Shortly after the return of Vladimir Putin to the Kremlin, a new deterioration in Russian-American relations began: from 2012 to 2018, the presidents of the two countries did not make official visits. During the bilateral meeting between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump in Helsinki in 2018, not only no agreements were signed, but not even a joint final statement.

  Author: Vitaly Kropman

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