US has no means to ‘bend Russia’ to its will – former envoy

John Sullivan believes a stalemate in Ukraine is the best the West can hope for in the foreseeable future

The sour relations between the West and Russia are unlikely to improve in the foreseeable future and Washington has no effective means to “bend” Moscow to its will, in particular on the Ukraine issue, Washington’s former ambassador to Russia, John Sullivan, has claimed.

In an interview with Foreign Policy magazine, published on Tuesday, Sullivan claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government is an “extremely difficult government to deal with” due to its negotiating style, which he claimed was based on “maximalist” demands.

“If there were something we could do to pressure Russia to bend to our will, we would’ve already done that on Ukraine. What are we going to threaten them with now? We’ve hit [Putin] with a lot of sticks over Ukraine. If I could come up with better sticks, we’d already be using them on Ukraine now,” Sullivan stated, apparently referring to sanctions the US and its allies have heaped on Russia since the outbreak of hostilities between Moscow and Kiev.

He said he expects that “Putin will not compromise over Ukraine” no matter what NATO countries do in their attempts to persuade him, because “it’s not of his nature to compromise on issues that are so fundamental to him as a person and his conception of Russia.”

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The former diplomat offered several potential scenarios for conflict resolution, such as “a cease-fire without conceding or recognizing any territory as Russia” or a “massive support program for Ukraine through a new lend-lease type program.”  He noted, however, that “all of that depends on a counterpart in the Kremlin that was willing to negotiate,” and “Putin is not going to.”

“I am pessimistic about the future in Ukraine because neither party at this point is looking to negotiate. The Ukrainians so far can’t push the Russians out of the Ukrainian territory they control. But on the flip side, the Russians haven’t been able to mount any major offensive to take more parts of Ukraine. So a stalemate is the best we can hope for in the foreseeable future,” he concluded.

Sullivan served as ambassador to Russia from 2019 until his departure from Moscow in September 2022. Prior to his return to the US, which came a mere six months into the Ukraine conflict, Sullivan admitted that relations between Moscow and Washington had hit an all-time low. 

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Moscow has repeatedly said that one of the major goals of its military operation against Kiev was to ensure Russia’s security in light of the threat posed by NATO’s expansion toward its borders. Another, it said, was to protect the Russian population living in the former Ukrainian territories from persecution by Kiev’s forces, which began following the Maidan coup in Kiev in 2014. Moscow has also stressed that it is open to a diplomatic solution to the conflict, albeit on its terms.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in late July that despite the West’s stance on the Ukraine conflict and sanctions it heaped on Moscow over the past two years, Russia remains open to dialogue and cooperation with Western countries, including on issues of security.