The Economist January 15th 2022 41
EuropeRussiaandtheWest
Teetering at the summit
A
s russian tankspoured west, heading
from Vladivostok on the Pacific coast
to the border with Ukraine, American dip
lomats headed east. Not since the Balkan
wars of the 1990s has Europe seen a week of
such crucial security summitry. On Janu
ary 10th American diplomats met Russian
ones in Geneva. Two days later the nato
Russia Council convened in Brussels. On
January 13th the diplomats headed to Vien
na for a gathering of the Organisation for
Security and Cooperation in Europe
(osce), a group of 57 countries.
The purpose of this frenetic diplomacy
was to prevent a war. Russia’s government
has demanded, among other things, that
natostop expanding and pull back from
places that used to be part of the Soviet Un
ion. It wants natomembers to stop coop
erating with Ukraine, and a legal guarantee
that Ukraine and Georgia will never join
the alliance (something those countries
have previously been promised). America
and its European allies have agreed to dis
cuss the Kremlin’s stated grievances, while
beefing up their defences and threatening
sanctions should Vladimir Putin, Russia’s
president, attack Ukraine again.
On the face of it, the summitry took
some heat out of the crisis. Sergei Ryabkov,
Russia’s deputy foreign minister, said that
his meeting with Wendy Sherman, Ameri
ca’s deputy secretary of state, was “very
professional” and “deep”. Ms Sherman,
who proposed ideas about how America
and Russia could limit missile deploy
ments and the size and transparency of
their exercises, noted that Mr Ryabkov had
even discussed “things that are not Rus
sian priorities”.
Yet Mr Ryabkov was keen that this not
be misunderstood. Deals on missiles and
exercises were nice, but a sideshow. “For
us, it’s absolutely mandatory to make sure
that Ukraine never, never, ever becomes a
member of nato,” he said, clarifying inEnglish: “We need ironclad, waterproof,
bulletproof, legally binding guarantees.”
These were not forthcoming when Rus
sia met the 29 other members of natoin
Brussels on January 12th for four hours of
talks. “It is only Ukraine and 30 allies that
can decide when Ukraine can become a na-
tomember,” said Jens Stoltenberg, the sec
retarygeneral of the alliance, after the
meeting. “No one else can.”
This was no surprise for Moscow, which
had expected its demands to be spurned.
Less clear was whether the Kremlin’s aim
was to elicit a pretext to attack Ukraine, or
simply to generate material for propagan
da. Some people familiar with Mr Putin say
that he has long lost interest in the dayto
day business of running Russia, but is ex
cited by geopolitical theatre; in recent
months, Russian officials have drawn
grandiose parallels with the Cuban missile
crisis. Mr Putin is well aware that ordinary
Russians have little appetite for a big war.
Yet he hopes to keep them in a state of fear,
to distract from the many grumbles they
have about his regime.
Western officials are keen to keep talks
going as long as possible in the hope that
the crisis may dissipate. Russian officials
have repeatedly warned that they will not
be drawn into what Mr Putin has called the
“swamp” of drawnout discussions, not
least because an invasion of Ukraine wouldA crucial week of diplomacy yields no progress on Ukraine
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