By Maxim Trudolyubov
Monday was a fateful day for U.S.-Russia relations.
Both sides told each other that they had nothing more to talk about in Syria.
President Vladimir Putin that same day made history by drafting a law that read
like a dark joke about the two countries’ state of mutual respect.
The Kremlin submitted a draft law to parliament ending
Russia’s participation in a treaty that had both Russia and the U.S. disposing
of their stockpiles of weapons-grade plutonium. The bill also includes a list
of mostly impossible conditions under which Moscow would reinstate its
adherence to the treaty.
The document is a litany of issues Moscow has
complained about for years: NATO expansion, the Magnitsky Act, Western support
for Ukraine, sanctions. The draft law essentially
says Russia would only come back to the plutonium deal once
the U.S. had repealed all of the “offensive” legislation and scaled down its
military presence in Eastern Europe.
In a separate but almost simultaneous move the Obama
administration said it had quit the negotiating process with Russia over
the cessation of hostilities in Syria. The U.S. blamed Moscow for not living up
to previous commitments and said there was nothing more for the U.S. and Russia
to talk about regarding Syria. Moscow reciprocated by saying that “Washington
simply did not fulfill the key condition of the agreement to improve the
humanitarian condition around Aleppo,” according
to Maria Zakharova,
spokesperson for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Meanwhile the terrible violence of the past week only
intensified over the weekend with the Syrian pro-government forces reportedly
targeting the one remaining hospital in eastern Aleppo and the city’s
infrastructure. Up to 275,000 people are reported by the UN to be under siege
in the rebel-held neighborhoods. “Indiscriminate bombing and shelling continues
in a shocking and unrelenting manner, killing and maiming civilians, subjecting
them to a level of savagery that no human should have to endure,” Stephen
O’Brien, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
(OCHA), said in
a statement issued on Sunday.
As soon as the U.S.-Russia-brokered cease-fire
agreement collapsed about two weeks ago, Assad’s army, supported by the Russian
air force, intensified its bombing campaign and artillery shelling of the
besieged areas. The Syrian government prevents humanitarian aid from getting to
Aleppo, saying that this is how the rebels get arms and ammunition. The result
is a bloody stalemate in which neither side is prepared to compromise and no
force on the ground is overwhelming enough to claim victory and thus end the
carnage. Eastern Aleppo is facing defeat by slow attrition if no political
agreement is reached.
Moscow and Washington, meanwhile, are as far apart on
Syria as ever. The two powers do not just think differently about Syria. Their
commitments are divergent in one very basic sense: while Russia’s position is
backed by force, the American position effectively is not.
During a recent private meeting with U.S.-supported
Syrian opposition groups John Kerry, the U.S. secretary of state, admitted his
frustration at not being able to persuade Washington to intervene in the
conflict more forcefully. “You have to fight for us, but we will not fight for
you,” one of the participants in the meeting was reported as describing what he
had heard from the U.S. side. The New York Times, which obtained a recording of the meeting, said the meeting took place in New York days after the
short-lived cease-fire.
With no credible threat behind U.S. calls for stopping
the violence, U.S. officials tried persuasion. But the State Department’s
spokesman’s line of reasoning was not very productive either. John Kirby said
last week that if Russia did not stop bombing Aleppo the civil war would
continue, terror attacks against Russian interests would continue, and Russia
would “continue to send troops home in body bags.”
“We cannot interpret this as anything other than the
current U.S. administration’s de facto support for terrorism,” Russian Deputy
Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was
quoted by Russian news agencies as responding. The U.S.
displayed “a
nervous reaction due to the wrong strategy the Americans have chosen in
the Middle East,” Maria Zakharova, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson,
said.
The U.S.-Russian diplomatic exchange on Syria is said
to have
continued despite the harsh wording of Russian statements and
threats by the U.S. to suspend bilateral engagement with Russia over Syria.
Assad’s forces will not withdraw from Aleppo because
occupying the entire city is a key part of the puzzle from the regime’s
viewpoint. It opens the path to northern Syria, which means being able to
secure the border with Turkey. “The U.S. has accepted that Assad’s forces have a slight edge over the
rebels. This is why they have intensified their rhetoric, to show their
commitment and mobilize public opinion. But the truth is the U.S. is bluffing
and can do nothing against Russia,” Andrei Baklanov, Russia’s former ambassador
to Saudi Arabia, told Vedomosti recently.
But achieving Russia’s goal of claiming a victory in
Syria will not be easy even in the face of U.S. reluctance to intervene.
“Taking Aleppo is possible but it is only possible by razing it to the ground,”
Alexei Arbatov, Russia’s preeminent international relations expert, told Vedomosti. Moscow has
chosen to stay the course and strive for victory at all costs because winners
take all and do not have to explain themselves or be judged by anyone.
This understanding might be the reason behind Vladimir
Putin’s plutonium legislation, which sounds like a provocative and desperate
missive rather than a document meant to be complied with. The Kremlin seems to
be inviting more tension rather than signaling a possible mitigation.
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