National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has in recent months held secret talks with high-level Russian officials, The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing unnamed US and allied officials.
The officials said that the talks were aimed at reducing the risk of the war in Ukraine turning into a broader conflict and that Sullivan warned Moscow against using nuclear weapons. They said Sullivan held talks with Yuri Ushakov, a foreign policy advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the secretary of the Russian Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev.
As of Sunday night in Washington DC, the talks haven’t been confirmed by the White House or the Kremlin. National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson was asked if Sullivan had the conversations and replied, “People claim a lot of things.”
The last confirmed call between Sullivan and a Russian official took place back in March. But Sullivan did say in September that the US has warned Russia of what the consequences would be if it used a nuclear weapon in Ukraine in private communications.
Since Russia invaded on February 24, the US has barely engaged on a high level with Russia, at least publicly. Top US and Russian military officials have held occasional calls, but there’s only been one known conversation between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov. But the Blinken-Lavrov call was focused on a potential prisoner swap, not the war in Ukraine.
President Biden recently said that he has “no intention” of meeting with Putin about Ukraine even after he warned the risk of nuclear “armageddon” was at its highest since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. The Journal report said that Sullivan is one person within the administration that has been pushing for lines of communication with Russia while many have not.
Wanting diplomacy with Russia has become an unpopular view in Washington. Last month, a group of 30 progressive Democrats sent a letter to President Biden that mildly called for talks with Russia, but after facing backlash, the letter was quickly retracted. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), who led the effort, blamed the release of the letter on her staff.
The Journal report also said that US and Russian officials are planning to hold a meeting of the Bilateral Consultative Commission, a compliance and implementation body that was established by the New START treaty. The New START Treaty is the last piece of nuclear arms control between the two powers and limits the deployment of warheads, missiles, and bombers. The idea of holding the talks is to work on resuming inspections that were suspended due to Covid-19.
“Wanting diplomacy with Russia has become an unpopular view in Washington.” — these people are truly too frightening to be allowed to do, really, anything besides being consigned to the madhouse. They certainly don’t deserve to live comfortably in retirement on nicely padded retirement benefits and fish or play golf. Or course their golf course and associated pond will be contaminated with radiation if they have their way. So there’s that.
I can see Trump wanting to meet with Putin face to face.
Do you think Trump would invite Putin to play golf?
Putin only plays hug the bear.
trump met with putin in 2016 regarding building a trump tower in moscow.
that was a conflict of interest and should have resulted in disqualifying him for the office of POTUS. democrats took that ball and ran with it and it morphed into the ridiculous “russia-gate” BS when the dems claimed that “putin hacked the election”.
SO, WHERE IS THE DOWN SIDE?… HAHAHAHA!
Exactly.
The nuke theme is just for the consumption of us chumps. It’s cover. Sullivan was on his knees begging Russia for a dignified way out. Same as Shultz’s recent trip to China was an attempt to get China to broker a solution with Russia.
Ik for one, do not believe anything that comes out of the Biden administration.
Niice
“But Sullivan did say in September that the US has warned Russia of what the consequences would be IF Russia used nukes…… ie it threatened time and again to punish Russia while always being the aggressor. Russia’s policy is clear. The USA wants to blame Russia for the USA’s violence.
Tactical nuclear similar to Nagasaki needed to dropped and we’re all expected that should already being dropped Ukraine,otherwise cognitive declined President then might woke up.
How’s American interest served playing Russian roulette in Ukraine? Go figure out that with this Irish old man living in his twilight zone,his problem is GPS and trying to find out people to shake hands.
It’s horrible not slightly bit funny and why his wife struggles him while sleeping,beats me. I guess she is partners at the crimes against humanity.
They’re conjuring a Russian nuclear threat to justify US nukes when Ukraine disintegrates.
Yes, Ukraine will disintegrate. The only questions are the exact moment, and the immediate precipitating event. It will look like Afghanistan, to equal “shock and surprise” among our hawks.
The question then is whether NATO will try to roll in and fight Russia over the ruins.
Only then could nuclear weapons become an issue. Not to disintegrate Ukraine, which hardly needs anything like that, but only to fight NATO in a WW3. Our hawks seem to want that, and seem to think such a war is winnable.
The neocons want an excuse to use nukes and the impending collapse of Ukraine fits the bill. Hence all the talk about nukes. And then they get to nuke Iran, which has recently been moved to the front burner.
Well said Ted.
In the Cuban missile crisis both superpowers were able to control events – not so easily today. As history warns: such scenarios lead nations into the wars they don’t want.
https://patternofhistory.wordpress.com/
Diplomacy???
It is an unknown concept with these neo con warmongers; bottom line is they want to destroy Russia and anything short of that is their version of kabuki theater.
Tactical nuclear similar to Nagasaki needed to dropped and we’re all expected that should already being dropped Ukraine,otherwise cognitive declined President then might woke up.
How’s American interest served playing Russian roulette in Ukraine? Go figure out that with this Irish old man living in his twilight zone,his problem is GPS and trying to find out people to shake hands.
It’s horrible not slightly bit funny and why his wife struggles him while sleeping,beats me. I guess she is partners at the crimes against humanity.
BFD. Am I supposed to believe that the idiots in the White House are up to something constructive? Good one.
Jaw jaw is better than war war.
There will be no negotiations as long as Blinken holds the reins.
-Benjamin Franklin
Winston Churchill I thought
Yeah Churchill. I get him and Franklin confused.
Franklin’s phrase was, “There never was a good war or a bad peace.”
Nice phraseology….
The irony of all this is, were Trump president, Ukraine would be guaranteed not to join NATO in any foreseeable future, nor would Georgia, nor would there have been any need to invade or worry about the well being of the people in the Donbass, and… (drumroll, please) – there would be two new Trump hotels under construction in St Petersburg and Moskow.
Sullivan is lying. Again.
He was not really warning against first use of nuclear weapons. That was never threatened by Russia, despite US propaganda in the US media.
Whatever he was talking about, he’s not saying. But this must be a lie.
Good news if true. Time will tell.
Talking to end bloodshed? What a completely foreign and novel concept… Better kill each other until no one is left…
Talking to end bloodshed? What a completely foreign and novel concept… Better kill each other until no one is left…
The irony of all this is, were Trump president, Ukraine would be guaranteed not to join NATO in any foreseeable future, nor would Georgia, nor would there have been any need to invade or worry about the well being of the people in the Donbass, and… (drumroll, please) – there would be two new Trump hotels under construction in St Petersburg and Moskow.
There was never a threat of neither Georgia or Ukraine joining NATO as long as they had running conflicts with neighbors – not to mention that France, Germany, Hungary and Turkey would get a vote on them joining – so the idea that Trump could have changed this by refusing Ukraine membership flies in the face of the facts – Georgia tried 13 years ago and could not get membership even if that was to not cover the South Ossetian part.
https://www.epc.eu/en/publications/NATO-and-Georgia-13-years-on-So-close-yet-so-far~3f974c
Your first paragraph has been overrun by current events. Zelensky decided on a NATO future in the years preceding 2022. Russians would have to have been idiots to assume their request would have been rebuffed by the US. Are you daft?
No it has not – Georgia also tried to become members – applying does not equate joining – are you as daft as to imagine that the US alone gets to decide who joins?
Yes it has. We can go back and forth on this but I read what Zelensky has written and said, and if you think he hasn’t made up his mind about this issue, I would suggest professional help.
As for Georgia, nothing has changed since the Georgian president was removed by his own people and denied Georgian citizenship for trying to get the Russians into a war.
And yes, given the current lack of competence in Europe, it would be the US that decides, and it would be the flock of poodles that concur – just like it has been during this entire clusterfu*k.
We agree on what Zelenskyy has expressed a desire for – you however do not seem to understand that neither Zelenskyy nor Biden for that matter can alone make the rest of the NATO countries accept Ukraine joining NATO – thus no need to go back and forth on this – until you address the point in question – accepting new members require all other members to agree – and the US could not even get Turkey to agree on Finland and Sweden joining, which would not require the members to go to war – so no hope of Ukraine joining – before the conflict with Russia is over.
Still not getting the point i.e. that wanting to join NATO does not equate being accepted into NATO.
No the rules still apply – if broken then the nations are not bound by article 5 – you must really be challenged – NATO is an intergovernmental organization – no member can dictate the vote of any other member – it would void the treaty.
You believe in rules. Good for you. The US believes in rules until the rules get in the way of what the US wants.
This is why we are the nation which has carried out the greatest number of interventions, coups, regime changes, proxy wars, etc. This is why you are wrong. The world is not governed by rules agreed upon universally. The idea that we operate according to international norms is a great big lie.
You seem to believe that Europeans are in total agreement with Biden’s little war. European governments are going along because they know what’s good for them. It’s just not that complicated. Do you think that Macron, Scholz, et all, don’t know the recent history of what has transpired in Ukraine since 1990? They know how we got here, but they’re not stupid.
What will be interesting will be the reaction of the European populace when they find out how long we’re going to impose this war on them.
No I believe in treaties that are relying on the voluntary contributions of the signatories – the US has not even once tried to force nations in NATO to go to wars that they did not want to join – you seem oblivious to how this works in NATO and just how difficult it is to get people to fight for what they and their governments do not want to fight.
Blinded by the narrative you want to further you ignore basic facts about how alliances work – this is just too daft.
Where did you get that silly notion I even supplied you with a short list of the nations that are not at all in agreement with Biden – just inventing stuff now?
No Germany indeed all of EU refused to go along and is only next month going to implement some of the sanctions that the US has been asking for since March – are you completely ignorant about the path that has been walked?
It appears too complicated for you to figure out – these two leaders have postponed sanctions and in the case of Scholz only after about 6 months of postponement made good on some of the military help they promised – this was not because of pressure form Biden but because of pressure form their domestic government coalition partner.
The population even in Germany is backing standing up to Putin – in the vast majority of countries there is a significant majority for the path chosen – yes it is hurting our economy, but there is no viable alternative that does not cause our economy more damage.
To realize this you have to let go of your bias and understand that the people of Europe know that if we allow wars of territorial conquest to go unsanctioned then we will have more of them (not necessarily from Russia I should add for those who are debating ghosts in their own minds).
Therefor even if Zelenskyy were to agree to terms with Putin tomorrow – we would still face all the same costs of the sanctions and additional costs for up arming our military in preparation for the further conflicts that we most certainly would expect.
You can disagree with this analysis because you trust the Russians more than you trust the US, but that is how the European governments are acting and will continue to act, because that is how the overwhelming majority of their populations see this.
Admission of a new member state requires the unanimous consent of all member states.
If Putin’s goal was to keep Ukraine out of NATO, all he had to do was put Lavrov on a plane to Budapest and offer some nice commercial enticements for their parliament to pass a resolution declaring that it would be the policy of Hungary to veto any Ukrainian membership application.
But Putin apparently preferred something he could use as a casus belli rather than an actual solution to the supposed problem.
Pure unadulterated nonsense. I’m well aware of the requirements for membership and have been for years. I’m also well aware of the quality of the current political elite in Europe.
“All he had to do was…” Jesus Christ on a stick.
Even in the current situation, the Orban regime in Hungary has mostly rejected EU sanctions on Russian goods, etc., and inveighed against US/NATO/EU proxy warfare in Ukraine.
If Lavrov had arrived in January with a set of inducements (guaranteed low prices on goods produced by Russian state-controlled companies such as oil/gas, preferential trade policy, etc.), Orban would have pushed an “it is the policy of Hungary to veto any prospective admission of Ukraine to NATO” resolution through in a hot minute.
Putin wanted a casus belli that was more globally applicable than just “we’re going in to make the secession of the Donbas republics effectual instead of continuing this eight-year-long proxy war/frozen conflict forever or letting the Ukrainian regime win it.” So he used what he had.
That would be a better world, even if Trump was losing money on hotels there.
Hating Trump is not a sound basis for foreign policy.
would be hilarious when trump failed to pony up any of his responsibility regarding a new trump tower in moscow. hey maybe trump would get a brand new lawyer to help him weasel out and then his new lawyer would also have to sue him for not paying his legal bills.
If they had been willing to pony up Trump’s demand of 2%, or whatever, I’m sure damn near anyone could have joined.
from Feb. 2022
“I hope everyone is able to remember that it was me, as President of the United States, that got delinquent NATO members to start paying their dues, which amounted to hundreds of billions of dollars,” Trump wrote in a statement released Monday. “There would be no NATO if I didn’t act strongly and swiftly.”
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-nato-ukraine-1313538/
Is it just me?…… Or there’s a cloud of ego in the room, when Trump is around….
WTF?
My point is that Trump would have tried to make a deal with the Russians, rather than start WWIII as are the present occupants.
My comments were in no way an endorsement of Trump.
I hope it’s not true, but perhaps people here are as quick to jump as they are in the forum I just left.
I just like to remind people of what comes out of his mouth. After reading your comments for a while now, I didn’t in the least think you endorsed Trump. My reminder wasn’t aimed at you. Sorry for any offense. I just want someone else besides Biden or Trump. That part of the shitstorm has got to end.
Yes, most powerful nuke now ~60 more powerful than Nagasaki bomb. Truman said Nagasaki was a “big bomb” but said more were killed in firebombing, it saved lives if war went on longer. True. PROBLEM: throughout human history war has become more deadly as the technology advances. We are descendants of inquisitive, troublesome primates who are not really all that peaceable. Still having problem with the socialization thing. Current generation (those younger than about 60) have no personal experience of those who were in WWII, did duck&cover in elementary school. Nukes are remote, nearly mythical. Like the Big Bad Wolf. So about as real as Halloween. Halloween is sanctified celebration of taunting the powers of destruction and doom — however in Real World, these forces have actual ability to cross over from the “Other World” as the Celts called it to ours. And BOOM.
Listening to Alex Christoforou from the Duran on YouTube. The Zelensky regime is now going to destroy the statue of Catherine the Great in Odessa. Part of the falsifying of “Ukrainian” history.
Ukraine was a small region far away from Odessa, not even touching the coast. Now Yale has put up a YouTube video with the usual suspects, claiming that “Ukraine” provided the grains for ancient Greece, i.e. that the ultra-corrupt, criminal stain Ukraine was the foundation of European history and culture. A lie so severe it disqualifies all of the U.S. from ever making any claims about Europe again. (The Greeks, most of which had originally come down from farther north in Europe, had a colony in Crimea. That’s it. They also had colonies by the coast in Italy, Sicily, the coast in Spain, etc.)
Catherine the Great, originally from Saxony (the nobility who built Russia were mostly Germans) founded Odessa, after she had defeated the Ottomans and their client state the Crimean Khanate, who took two million Whites from eastern Europe as slaves for the Ottomans, who rahped the women and the boys. Catherine freed the Poles, the Russians and others from this. And of course Prince Potemkin founded Nikolaev, named after St. Nikolas, which the Kiev regime has renamed “Mykolaiv”. They forbid the name Nikolaev even on social media.
Speaking of social media, the Zelensky loyals set up a poll on a Facebook page, which they declare is their support for destroying the historical statue in Odessa, and presumably also renaming the Catherine Square. Odessa has a population of one million. The poll had 8,000 people voting. Only 3,900 wanted to destroy the statue of Odessa’s founder, 2,700 voted against. Among those who showed proof that they actually live in Odessa the difference was even smaller, 2,900 voting for demolition and 2,250 voting against.
For this alone Russia should retake Nikolaev and Odessa.
Odessa is where the Biden-funded coup regime burned more than 40 pro-democracy protesters to death in 2014. They imported “soccer” hooligans under the cover of a game, and then the coup-loyal mayor directed them by cellphone to the protesters, who they chased into a building that they set on fire. People who tried to flee through the windows were fired on. The fire station was just 400 meters away but they refused to show up when called, waiting more than 30 minutes to make sure the pro-democracy protesters would die. No one was prosecuted for the mass killing, which is celebrated on the pro-coup side. They make memes online about “frying Russians” and pass around pictures of the burned bodies.
No one can say anything about the rights of Russians in Odessa anymore, like that they should be allowed to speak their language at work or in Russian schools, which have been closed.
“The Journal report said that Sullivan is one person within the administration that has been pushing for lines of communication with Russia while many have not.”
Big fat hmm.
1/ US assertions that they’re trying to ‘keep lines of communication open’ is a recent thing – and the WSJ story itself seems as though it was responding to the ‘bait’ of ‘a change on communication’ which US ‘unnamed’ officials were standing by to corroborate.
2/ So ‘unnamed’ officials say ‘Yea, Sullivan wants to communicate’? Even if that’s true – the action of profiling him does not necessarily point to a State Dept. ‘coming around to the necessity of talking’…
…but, rather, can as easily be the US engaged in the same ploy it wants Ukraine to engage in, quoted in DeCamp’s “US Wants Ukraine to Act like It’s Open” to negotiations article:
“‘a calculated attempt to ensure the government in Kyiv maintains the support of other nations facing constituencies wary of fueling a war for many years to come.’”