After a month of remote skirmishes, the American and Russian negotiators meet today in Geneva. On the table is the stability of Europe. By encircling Ukraine, Moscow has upped the ante. It can brutally destabilize if it does not obtain a NATO retreat and a downsizing of the American presence as “guarantees of security”. These proposals, point blank, have taken the West off guard. Which, in the first instance, delegates the answer to Washington. The echo of past times is unmistakable but it does not mean that we will inertially fall back into the Cold War in Europe – while the rest of the world gallops forward. There is a risk, with the aggravating circumstance of a possible conflict in the center of the continent that would heat it somewhat. This week will tell which way the scales tip. The match begins today between the Americans and the Russians, who field two veteran diplomats, the Deputy Secretary of State, Wendy Sherman, and the Deputy Foreign Minister, Sergei Ryabkov. Washington and Moscow exchanged very harsh smoke signals – practically both said “no concessions”. It should not be dramatized. Sometimes this is how a (later) good negotiation starts. But that’s not encouraging.
After the first half in Geneva, the European allies take the field in the second half, with the NATO-Russia meeting in Brussels on Wednesday. Ukrainians and all other non-NATO members, in extra time, with the meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) on Thursday in Vienna. NATO is careful not to short-circuit Kiev; a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council is also being held in Brussels today. For its part, Kiev, tightened in the Russian military embrace, escapes an exclusive dependence on Western negotiators by proposing to Russia a plan of concrete measures to defuse the crisis – which remained without official response but published in the Russian press.
Kiev affirms the principle “no decision on Ukraine without Ukraine”, tweeted by the foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba. The Russian proposal for two bilateral treaties, with the US and with NATO, would instead have the effect of binding the future of Ukraine and the other ex-USSR countries behind them. This is the main argument for rejecting the Russian proposals. Moscow’s request for “guarantees” of its own security deserves to be discussed but at the table there must be all the countries, starting with Ukraine, which equally assert their security needs – without the Russian gun aimed at the neck. This is why Thursday’s OSCE meeting is just as important as the two preceding it. Of course, compared to the US and NATO, the OSCE is an unarmed prophet – as Stalin said of the Vatican “it has no divisions”. But it is the forum in which everyone can make their voices heard and avoid the Leonine pact excluding the weakest to which the two treaties proposed by Moscow would lead.
The week starting today is crucial. Europe’s stability and security are in the balance. The deployment of Russian forces around Ukraine is not a military parade on Red Square; it is ready for use at the discretion of Vladimir Putin. To harness it, a cocktail of deterrence is needed – Washington and the EU have developed a series of heavy measures – and a lot of diplomacy. Moscow knows what it wants. Washington probably has adequate bilateral strategic responses. The born? It is not enough to go to the negotiation with a “no”. We must begin to think about what to counter-propose to the Russians: why not a return to a European security architecture based on the treaties that we dropped and made us sleep more peacefully, even in Moscow and St. Petersburg – Inf, Cfe, Open skies? Let’s propose it and see what and how Russia responds – in front of the Osce audience.