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Europe, U.S. struggle to appear united against Russia as divisions form over Ukraine
With the threat of war looming over Ukraine, the West hopes high-level talks the United States and NATO will have next week with Russia will avert a conflict.
International
LONDON — With the threat of war looming over Ukraine, the West hopes a flurry of high-level talks the United States and NATO will have this week with Russia will avert a conflict.
The West faces a daunting task in trying to get Russia to back down, while addressing Moscow's demands that would reshape Europe's post-Cold War security landscape.
But just as crucial to the talks, according to officials and experts, is resolving suggestions of disunity between Washington and its European allies on how to approach the Kremlin.
“The No. 1 thing” for the talks to be successful “is that it’s not just the U.S.,” said retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, former commander of U.S. Army forces in Europe. The Kremlin needs to know that whatever President Joe Biden or Secretary of State Antony Blinken say, it represents U.S. allies and that it is facing a united front, he added.
If Russian President Vladimir Putin thinks “that Germany isn’t going to step up, or the U.K. is distracted, or France is focused on its own elections, then the risk is way higher,” he said.
Putin has massed some 100,000 troops on Ukraine’s borders, leading officials and experts to fear he might be planning another invasion following 2014’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula. Putin has denied this is his plan.
Desperate to avoid all-out war, NATO convened an extraordinary meeting of its foreign ministers Friday. American and Russian officials are set to hold bilateral talks in Geneva on Monday, before a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council in Brussels on Wednesday.
The U.S. has declined to say exactly what it would do to Russia beyond financial punishments that go beyond anything levied before and providing extra defense assistance to Ukraine.
Current and former administration officials have previously said the measures could including cutting off Russia from the the SWIFT international payment system — an unprecedented action that would effectively isolate it from the world's banks.
While Putin has denied planning an invasion, he said the "ball is in their court" for the West to respond to a list of demands the Kremlin issued last month that would significantly redraw Europe’s security landscape.
NATO dismissed the ultimatum, which included removing troops from Eastern European countries that joined the alliance in 1997, and blocking Ukraine from ever joining.
Putin has repeatedly suggested that Ukraine isn't a fully independent country, forever bound by culture, history and shared myth to its former Soviet allies in Moscow. Rather than him being the aggressor, he has accused NATO of inching further toward Russia's borders.
Washington has been eager to show unity with European allies and partners, with all parties issuing lockstep statements warning an invasion would be met with harsh financial punishments.
But there have been hints of division.
This week, Josep Borrell, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, appeared to voice displeasure at the E.U.’s absence from the talks, saying it “cannot be a neutral spectator in the negotiations.”
The reality is that the E.U. — a diverse group of 27 countries — is not united when it comes to Russia.