Russia says it is conducting a “special operation” to civilianize and “deny” Ukraine.
Washington:
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has made John Sullivan’s daunting task as US envoy in Moscow even more difficult as he grapples with the Kremlin’s nuclear saber-rattle and keeping his embassy operating at a tenth of the normal staff Threatens to break ties.
“It was really bad two and a half years ago,” Sullivan recalled of his arrival in January 2020. “It’s gotten worse.”
Serious staff cuts imposed by Russia’s government have yet to force him to clean embassy toilets or buff floors, as was rumored in Washington, though he said he knew how to do both.
The brash grandson of Irish immigrants explained in an interview this week about Washington being the man in Moscow, a five-week war in which US-supplied weapons are killing soldiers of his host country and the United States and the United States. Sanctions imposed by its allies are destroying Russia’s economy.
So far, he said, his meetings with Russian Foreign Ministry officials “have not been personally abusive or hostile,” nor has there been any serious backlash against the embassy.
“The security situation here is not much different than it was a month ago, six months ago,” he said via video call from a Spartan office, which faces an embassy courtyard covered with fresh snow. “But this may change in a minute at the discretion of the host government.”
John Herbst, a former US envoy to Ukraine with the Atlantic Council think tank, said Sullivan was dealing with situations that no former US ambassador to Russia had faced. “We are in a period of really hostile relations with Moscow.”
US-Russian relations were already at their best since the Cold War, when former US President Donald Trump tapped Sullivan for one of the toughest jobs in American diplomacy, previously held by John Quincy Adams and George Cannon. Like the giants had.
Rivals were engaged in tit-for-tat evictions and a diplomatic visa dispute, with the US consulate in St Petersburg ordered to close in March 2018. The consulates in Vladivostok and Yekaterinburg were closed after their arrival, the embassy was abandoned. The only operating US mission in Russia.
But its staff has dropped from about 1,200 in 2017, to 130, about half of whom are Marines and other security guards.
The two sides were also on issues ranging from the Syrian civil war and the annexation of Crimea by the Kremlin and support for separatists in Ukraine’s east to US sanctions, which slapped Russia in 2016 for trying to vote Trump for the presidency. Was.
As relations deteriorated, Trump’s Democratic successor, Joe Biden, decided to retain Sullivan, a Republican lawyer who doesn’t speak Russian, but his affection for Russia is in line with childhood praise for the Soviet hockey team. Is.
In April 2021, Washington recalled Sullivan for consultation after Russia’s envoy was summoned to Moscow.
Implementing a decree from President Vladimir Putin, in May 2021 the Russian government ordered the embassy to fire scores of Russian employees performing important tasks. It stopped the processing of all except “life or death” visas.
Tensions are expected to ease when Sullivan and Russia’s ambassadors to Washington return to their posts in June and Biden and Putin meet in Geneva that same month.
But the relationship deteriorated. Russia mobilized troops along Ukraine’s borders, demanded comprehensive security guarantees rejected by Washington and its NATO allies, and attacked its neighbor on February 24.
“As far as diplomatic relations are concerned, we are in the Mariana Trench,” Sullivan said, referring to the deepest ocean trench on Earth.
Russia says it is conducting a “special operation” to civilianize and “deny” Ukraine. The war killed thousands and uprooted millions.
Sullivan’s challenges are ominous for routine.
Days after launching his offensive, Putin put his nuclear forces on high alert, citing aggressive statements from NATO leaders and economic sanctions against Moscow.
US officials say they are concerned about the indirect dangers of nuclear war that they keep hearing from Russian officials, including comparisons to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.
Sullivan said he took seriously the threat “from the top of the Russian government” to sever diplomatic ties, adding that “the Russians do not engage in rhetoric.”
“The United States doesn’t want to close its embassy here. President Biden doesn’t want to have me back as ambassador. But it’s not something we necessarily control,” he said.
‘Crowbar to take me out’
Russia expelled Sullivan’s deputy in February and recently said another 37 US employees should leave by July. A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it would leave the embassy in “caretaker status”, guarded by a skeleton crew.
The US official said the embassy has already lost its elevator technician, meaning diplomats may soon be doing a lot of atlases, and that if the last two electricians have to leave, keeping the sprinkler system running is a serious security risk. will become an issue.
An increase in overnight calls with Washington as tensions over Russia’s military build-up prompted Sullivan to move out of Spaso House, the elegant ambassadorial residence, a 15-minute drive from Chancery and its secure communications facility, in February.
He moved to the more modest Townhouse One, where his deputy lived before being expelled, which is a quick walk to Chancery, the US official said.
If diplomatic ties were severed, requiring the embassy to be closed, Sullivan said he could no longer pursue one of his most important tasks: advocating for detained Americans.
These include basketball stars Brittany Griner and former Marine Trevor Reid, who are going on a second hunger strike, and Paul Whelan, as well as an unknown number of others.
“I’ve told my colleagues back home, they’re going to have to use a crowbar to get me out of here because I’m not leaving until, you know, unless they throw me out or the president.” Just say, ‘Look, you have to come home.’
Sullivan said he wants to “be here and at least advocate for the Americans we will leave behind bars of iron.”