Washington The crisis phone call between US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin lasted exactly 50 minutes. A senior White House government official spoke of a “serious and substantial” conversation.
Biden, who took the call at his private home in Delaware, had a time advantage: it was only afternoon for him, and in Moscow it was already approaching midnight. But Putin had to live with that. After all, it was the Kremlin who asked for the phone call, and the White House set the framework.
The US side is also very interested in an exchange. The US government hopes to be able to defuse the crisis on the Russian border with Ukraine. Russia has now posted 100,000 soldiers there, despite numerous warnings from the West.
The USA, together with the European Union, have prepared severe sanctions – even if economic penalties have not changed the fact that Russia has been occupying Crimea in violation of international law since 2014.
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The US president must now take on the role of the determined mediator, he wants to prevent another escalation. However, Washington is skeptical about the extent to which Putin can be trusted. From the point of view of the White House, little has changed since the last video conference between Biden and Putin, which was three weeks ago. “We are in a permanent state of crisis with Russia,” said the US official.
Putin: sanctions would be “a big mistake”
Biden is ready for “a diplomatic path forward” but will “react decisively” if Russia attempts an invasion, the White House said. Specifically, the US government is threatening “serious costs and consequences” in the form of tough sanctions and “additional deterrence by NATO”. Among other things, the US is considering sending military advisers and equipment to Ukraine.
According to a message from the Kremlin, Putin clearly opposed this in the phone call: Any form of sanctions would be “a big mistake” and would “tear up” relations between the two nations, he said.
Washington takes the developments on the Ukrainian border very seriously and has been warning for months that Russia could invade the neighboring country. Ukraine is an important strategic ally of the USA, which is one of the reasons why the Biden government wants to keep up the pressure on Moscow.
After all, according to the White House, Moscow has shown itself to be open to “pragmatic solutions through diplomacy” and wants to keep the talks going. A meeting of top American and Russian diplomats is planned for January 10 in Geneva. This is followed by a meeting of NATO and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), followed by a Russia-NATO meeting on January 12 and a larger conference with Moscow, Washington and EU countries.
The dispute over Nord Stream 2 is not over – Germany under pressure
The more time passes, the more doubts there are about Putin’s will to de-escalate. So far, the alliance of the West has not produced any concrete results; instead, Russia has deliberately provoked the West. Putin demands that Ukraine should never join NATO and that the Western military alliance must stop all activities in Ukraine and Eastern Europe. These are tones that are more reminiscent of blackmail than diplomatic negotiations.
Biden’s main problem is that he has to balance different interests: direct military intervention is not an option for the US, especially not after the 20-year war in Afghanistan. Ukraine, in turn, is pushing for protection from the West. At the same time, Washington does not want to endanger relations with the EU, especially with Germany.
In Biden’s first year in office, these were repeatedly put to the test. The White House stressed on Thursday that it was “in daily contact” with transatlantic partners. Following the telephone call, the White House demonstratively sent a summary to Ukraine to the heads of state and government of the EU.
The different interests collide in the conflict over the controversial German-Russian pipeline Nord Stream 2. The dispute was briefly pacified when the US government blocked sanctions against Germany in the summer and then Chancellor Angela Merkel concluded an agreement with Biden.
Washington is dissatisfied with the fact that Russia can continue to provoke and that Nord Stream 2 is a powerful means of exerting pressure on the energy supply. The eleven billion euro project is as good as operational, but the energy crisis in Europe and Russian rearmament have alarmed the US.
“We see the pipeline as a geopolitical project by Russia that is undermining the energy security and national security of the Euro-Atlantic community,” said Karen Donfried, State Secretary for Europe at the US State Department recently.
So far, Biden has insisted that he would not sanction a central partner like Germany. But he is under immense political pressure. In January the US Senate wants to vote in Congress on possible new sanctions against Nord Stream 2 – and limit Biden’s ability to veto it.
More: Both strands of Nord Stream 2 are now filled with gas. Russian President Putin has given the prospect of falling gas prices in the West if Germany puts the pipe into operation.