By Andrew
Roth
MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin
will storm into New York on Monday seeking to prove that he will not be
isolated at his first appearance at the United Nations General Assembly in a
decade.
With a
jackknife military and diplomatic pivot toward Syria, Putin has tried to
mitigate the damage of a year’s adventurism in Ukraine in a defiant gambit he
hopes will appeal to the West’s cold logic and need.
The sudden
deployment to Syria of Russian warplanes and battle tanks has upended the
West’s calculus of freezing out Russia and helped prompt a head-to-head meeting
between Putin and Obama on Monday in New York that was unthinkable just weeks
ago.
In Moscow, Russian officials, including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov,
have declared that Russia’s call for a coalition against the Islamic State is
gaining traction in the West. Though the White House said that Obama’s core
message at the meeting with Putin would focus on Ukraine and not Syria, it appears that the Russians at least have a foot in the
door.
A senior Western diplomat in Moscow this week
said there is a growing appetite for dialogue with Putin about the Syrian
crisis, particularly as Europe faces an unprecedented flood of migrants, many
fleeing the war in Syria.
“He is not
the one who needs a deal. He has time on his side. It is us who needs a deal
more,” said the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “Whatever
happens in Syria, we know that he will probably be a part of it.”
“Meanwhile,
we see that he is attempting to steer the conversation away from Ukraine
entirely,” he added.
The road to any compromise between Russia and the West will face a steep
battle, as anger over Russia’s annexation of Crimea and support for separatists
in Ukraine’s southeast has shattered diplomatic ties at most levels and driven
relations to their worst since the end of the Cold War. And even if Putin is
able to secure meetings with Western leaders, it does not ensure any results.
“There is still zero trust in the West about
Putin and what he’s doing and what he says,” said Andrew Weiss, vice president
for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Obama last
spoke with Putin by phone in July following the conclusion of the Iran nuclear
deal. The two spoke very briefly in person at a D-Day anniversary in France in
June 2014 and at an economic summit in Australia in November. Obama canceled a
2013 bilateral summit with Putin after Russia gave refuge to the former NSA
contractor Edward Snowden.
Though fighting has decreased recently in
Ukraine, progress following a road map out of the conflict called the Minsk
Accords has come to a standstill. Meanwhile, the appearance of Russian forces
in Syria has jumpstarted concerns that the Kremlin is doubling down on Syrian
leader Bashar al-Assad or may accidentally come into conflict with Western
forces.
Speaking before world leaders on Monday, Putin will attack the United
States’ use of sanctions, Lavrov told reporters, likely including the
individual and sectoral sanctions imposed on Russia last summer over the
Ukraine crisis.
But
overwhelmingly, officials and analysts said, he will focus on the Syrian crisis
and the rising threat of international terrorism.
“The United
Nations rostrum is hardly a place for work plans. It will be a statement of
purpose,” said Boris Makarenko, the head of the Moscow-based Center for
Political Technologies. “I am sure he will focus on the collapsing regime and
world order, but I think it will sound peaceful. I am not sure it will be full
of substance.”
Lavrov
focused his efforts on Syria at a bilateral summit with European diplomats on
Tuesday in Moscow. It did not include specific proposals on Syria, Western
attendees said, only an invitation from the Russian government for cooperation.
Perhaps the
thorniest issue dividing Russia and the West is the future of Assad, whom
Secretary of State John F. Kerry urged Russia not to defend this week. The
United States has demanded that Assad eventually step down in any settlement to
the conflict. Russian officials deny they are protecting Assad, who faced a
series of military defeats that alarmed advisers on the Kremlin’s Syria policy
this summer, convincing them he may require more direct support.
Maria Zakharova, the Russian Foreign Ministry's
official spokeswoman, said in an interview that the West’s pattern of
intervention in the Middle East in the past decade-and-a-half had fueled
instability and terrorism in the region, calling it a "dead end"
policy.
“We are not
supporting Assad as a person,” Zakharova said when asked about accusations of
human rights abuses that critics have leveled against him. “We did not say that
he is a good guy or that he is a great leader. But Syria is an independent
country, and it should develop through a political evolution and not become an
exporter of terrorism. We support the Syrian struggle against terrorism.”
Critics say
that Russia’s focus on terrorism is misdirection, citing
data that Assad’s army is responsible for more than seven times as many
deaths as the Islamic State in the first six months of 2015.
According to
satellite imagery and U.S. officials, Russia has 28 military jets, 14
helicopter gunships and transports, as well as T-90 main battle tanks and
surface to air missile systems now stationed in Latakia, an Assad stronghold in
Syria’s northwest. Kerry on Tuesday said that the deployment “basically
represents force protection,” because most of the jets are meant for ground
attack.
Peskov,
Putin’s spokesman, declined to comment on media reports on Thursday that Russia
would consider carrying out airstrikes in Syria even if a deal with the West on
military cooperation is not struck.
“Strangely
enough, now Russia has arrived at the situation where Russian intervention is
needed in order to deny the principle of intervention at large," said
Fyodor Lukyanov, a leading and well-connected political analyst in Moscow. “I
don't think the question in Russia is whether to keep Assad or get rid of
Assad. It’s about what to do with the remnants of Syrian statehood.”
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