The Russian invasion of Ukraine has made it even more difficult for John Sullivan to work hard as US envoy to Moscow as he grapples with nuclear threats from the Kremlin and threats to sever relations by holding down some time his embassy ranked 10th in the normal staff. “It was really bad two and a half years ago. Years ago,” Sullivan recalled of his January 2020 arrival. not yet obligated to clean embassy bathrooms or polish floors, as they say in Washington, although he said he can do both.The talkative grandson of Irish immigrants explained in an interview this week that he is Washington’s man in Moscow five weeks into a war in which US-supplied weapons are killing host nation troops and sanctions imposed by the US and its allies are devastating the Russian economy.So far, he said, his meetings with Russian US Department of Foreign Affairs officials “have not been personally offensive or hostile.” serious reactions against the embassy. “The security situation here is not t not much different than she was a month ago, yes you are, ”he said by video call from a spartan office overlooking the freshly snow-covered embassy courtyard. “But that could change at the discretion of the host government in a minute.Sullivan faces circumstances that no former US ambassador to Russia has faced, said John Herbst, a former US envoy to Ukraine at the Atlantic Council think tank. “We are indeed in a period of hostile relations with Moscow. The coldest years of the post-Cold War period when former US President Donald Trump used Sullivan for one of the most difficult posts in American diplomacy. , previously occupied by luminaries such as John Quincy Adams and George Kennan. Vladivostok and Yekaterinburg were closed after his arrival, leaving the embassy as the only operational U.S. mission in Russia, but its staff has shrunk from about 1,200 in 2017 to about 130, about half of whom are Marines and other security personnel seized Crimea and handed over eastern Ukraine separatists to US sanctions nsi slapped Russia for trying to influence the vote Trump presidential election in 2016.As relations sour, Trump’s Democratic successor Joe Biden has decided to keep Sullivan, a Republican establishment lawyer who doesn’t speak Russian but whose affection for Russia dates back to his childhood admiration for the Soviet hockey team. In April 2021, Washington recalled Sullivan for consultations after the Russian envoy was summoned to Moscow. Implementing a decree by President Vladimir Putin, the Russian government in May 2021 ordered the embassy to fire dozens of Russian employees who performed critical tasks. This forced her to discontinue treatment except for “life or death” visas. Hope that tensions might ease rose when Sullivan and Russia’s ambassador to Washington resumed their duties in June and Biden and Putin met in Geneva the same month. But relations soured. Russia massed troops on the borders of Ukraine, demanded important security guarantees rejected by Washington and its NATO allies, and invaded its neighbor on February 24. “We are in the Mariana Trench in this Regarding the diplomatic king, referring to Earth’s deepest ocean abyss, Russia says it is carrying out a “special operation” to demilitarize and “denazify” Ukraine.The war has killed thousands and uprooted millions. Sullivan’s challenges range from the grim to the routine. Days after launching his invasion, Putin put his nuclear forces on high alert, citing aggressive statements from NATO leaders and economic sanctions against Moscow. concerned about veiled threats of nuclear war that continue to be heard from Russian officials, including confrontations with the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Sullivan said he takes seriously a threat from “the top of the government Russian” to sever diplomatic ties, stating that “The Russians don’t engage in rhetorical frills.” The United States doesn’t want to close its embassy here. President Biden doesn’t want to recall me as ambassador. is not something that we necessarily control,” he said. PRY ME OUT ‘Russia expelled Sullivan’s deputy in February and recently declared another 37 U.staff are due to leave in July. That would leave the embassy in a “guardian state”, protected by a skeleton contingent, a US official said on condition of anonymity. The embassy has already lost its elevator technician, which means that diplomats could soon be doing a lot on the atlas and that the operation of sprinkler systems will become a serious security problem if the last two electricians have to do it. .
