The press conference that followed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s five-hour meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban Tuesday was long on rhetoric but short on new facts: The Kremlin leader aired many of his longstanding grievances, but declined to point the way to an exit from the tense international standoff over Ukraine.
It’s a script Putin has read from before. In concluding remarks, he complained about what he characterized as NATO’s history of deceptions, saying the alliance had previously promised to expand “not an inch” eastward.
“They said one thing, they did another,” Putin said. “As people say, they screwed us over, well they simply deceived us.”
He also mentioned another key moment: The US decision to quit the landmark Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, a decision President George W. Bush announced in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
That, too, has been a longstanding irritant for Putin: The move paved the way for the stationing of US missile-defense assets in eastern Europe. Back in 2016, Putin said the withdrawal from the ABM Treaty was what spurred him to develop new strike capabilities that could defeat US missile defenses. Since then, Putin has unveiled a number of advanced weapons systems, to the consternation of the West and Washington.
The other points Putin raised – a halt to NATO expansion eastwards and the return of NATO’s infrastructure in Europe to its 1997 footprint – were also not new. On those issues, Washington and Moscow remain far apart: The US and NATO insist on an open-door policy for new members and say Russia has no veto over new membership.
So what, exactly, was the takeaway? Putin has yet to give a full, formal response to the US and NATO letters sent a week ago in response to Russia’s security demands, and it is unclear when a reply is forthcoming.
What was striking was Putin’s return to his obsession with Ukraine and his vision of its proper relationship with Russia. In his remarks, Putin insisted the aim of the US was to “draw us into armed conflict” over Ukraine by using the country as a springboard for NATO operations.
“Their main task is to contain the development of Russia,” Putin said. “In this sense, Ukraine itself is simply a tool to achieve this goal. This can be done in different ways. Draw us into some kind of armed conflict and force – among other things – their allies in Europe to impose the very tough sanctions against us that are being talked about in the United States today. Or draw Ukraine into NATO, set up strike weapon systems there and encourage some Banderites [Ukrainian nationalists] to resolve the issue of Donbas or Crimea by force of arms. And thus draw us into an armed conflict!”
Putin – who published his own history paper last year outlining his belief in the unity of Russian and Ukrainian peoples – has a thing for history. Thankfully, he spared us the lecture on the convoluted history of Ukrainian nationalism in the 1930s and 1940s. But he made one thing clear: He had yet to decide on whether to take action, military or otherwise.
“I hope that we will eventually find this solution, although it is not an easy one, and we are aware of this,” he said. “But what that will be, I’m not ready to say today, of course.”
The initiative, in that respect, remains Putin’s.
