1. Why are the US-Russian talks important for Ukraine’s future?
Ukraine is at the center of the Russian-American dimension of the ongoing New Cold War. That country’s previously non-aligned military status is now being challenged by NATO’s de facto expansion to it under the cover of providing support to Kiev in order to fend off an alleged Russian invasion. From Moscow’s standpoint, this is a red line because the Kremlin fears that the bloc will eventually deploy so-called “anti-missile” infrastructure there which President Putin has previously warned could easily be reprogrammed within minutes to launch offensive missiles against his country.
Russia has also denied that it has any plans to invade Ukraine but made it clear that it’ll defend its national security interests as it understands them to be, which includes not only preventing the deployment of potentially offensive missile infrastructure there under the cover of being “anti-missile” systems, but also to possibly respond if any large-scale Kiev-led operations in Donbass endanger its territorial integrity. The Putin-Biden talks were meant to explore the possibility of pragmatic compromises aimed at de-escalating this undeclared missile crisis in the heart of Europe.
2. In light of these talks, can we expect the tension to de-escalate in the near future? For example, will Russia withdraw its troops?
To be clear, Russia – like all countries – has the right to deploy its military forces wherever, however, and whenever it wants within its own territory. It cannot “withdraw” its troops since they’re only in Russia and thus have nowhere to “withdraw” to. As for whether tensions will de-escalate, it’ll remain to be seen since details of their talks aren’t clear yet, though that’s by nature given how sensitive the issue is. Nevertheless, the very fact that they held these talks in the first place speaks to both sides’ desire to de-escalate, though as they say, “the devil is in the details”. Hopefully progress will be seen soon.
3. What do you think will be the Ukraine strategy of the USA and Europe from now on?
Some background briefing is required in order to better understand the answer that will subsequently be provided. The US’ permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”) are comprised of two competing factions, the anti-Russian and anti-Chinese ones. The former was disproportionately influencing policy around the beginning of Trump’s time in office, but the last president successfully replaced most of them with his anti-Chinese allies. This explains the US-Chinese dimension of the New Cold War that began with the US’ trade and tech war against China.
Nevertheless, the anti-Russian faction isn’t powerless. It’s still influential though not as much as before. This network wants to undermine the predominant anti-Chinese one’s of responsibly regulating the US-Russian rivalry that’s aimed at enabling America to redirect more of its military and other resources away from Europe towards most aggressively “containing” China in Asia. It’s doing so by leveraging its influence in the Baltic States, Poland, and especially Ukraine to provoke another East/West (Russia/US) crisis aimed at undermining those two’s pragmatic engagements as of late.
The anti-Chinese faction understands the pragmatism of responsibly regulating the US-Russian rivalry in Europe in order to more aggressively “contain” China in Asia, to which end it must reach a series of pragmatic compromises with Moscow in Ukraine and elsewhere in order to achieve that. The anti-Russian one, by contrast, believes that the US must focus more on “containing” Russia in Europe than China in Asia. Its interests are in sabotaging any such pragmatic compromises between the US and Russia in Ukraine in order to keep Russian-US New Cold War tensions very high.
The interplay between these rival “deep state” factions, and particularly the influence that the anti-Russian “deep state” one has in Ukraine, will determine the future of US policy towards Kiev. As it stands, the anti-Chinese one remains predominant as evidenced by the very fact that the latest talks took place, yet the anti-Russian one might still succeed in encouraging Ukraine to launch a large-scale operation in Donbass which might prompt a conventional Russian response. Because of the opacity of these dynamics by their very nature, it’s difficult to confidently predict the future of US policy.
Some excerpts from this interview were included in Merve Kızılaslan’s recent article for TRT World titled “Ukraine Crisis: Can US-Russia Talks Break The Impasse?”