Kerry Has 'Frank' Talks With Putin About Ukraine, Syria, Iran
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry says he has had "frank discussions" about Ukraine, Syria, and Iran with the Russian president and foreign minister.
Kerry made the comment on Twitter after meeting with Vladimir Putin and Sergei Lavrov in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi on May 12.
The Russian Foreign Ministry quoted Lavrov as telling Kerry that Moscow was ready for constructive cooperation with the United States on the basis of equal partnership, and that Russia would not bow to pressure to abandon its national interests.
It is Kerry's first visit to Russia in two years.
The talks came as Ukrainian military officials said three of its servicemen had been killed and one was wounded in eastern Ukraine over the past 24 hours.
A shaky cease-fire deal between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian separatists took effect in February.
Based on reporting by Reuters and Interfax
An excerpt:
People of decency and good will around the world have been horrified by Vladimir Putin’s defense this week of the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact which made Hitler and Stalin allies, opened the way to World War II, and allowed the Soviet Union to occupy Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, portions of Poland and Bessarabia for half a century.
But they should be even more horrified by the fact that some near the Kremlin are once again thinking about “a preventive occupation” of the Baltic countries, a step that, as Kseniya Kirillova points out today, could trigger the collapse of the West or a third world war.
Moreover, and just as in 1939, they should be disturbed by Moscow’s duplicity and cynicism about such a move, one nominally taken in the name of improving Russia’s defense capability but in fact threatened in order to advance Russian imperialism and to disorder and confuse the Western powers.
In her commentary, Kirillova does two things: First, she points to a recent article by Moscow commentator Rostislav Ishchenko calling for a “preventive” strike against the Baltic littoral in order to block what he sees as a threat from NATO; and second, she interviews former RISI analyst Aleksandr Sytin on why Ishchenko’s words are more than the ravings of one man.
According to Ishechenko, Moscow has a compelling interest in a preventive occupation of at least portions of the Baltic countries in order to counter NATO, an interest he says exists even if there is no such threat, because such a move would allow for “the preservation of the line of ‘the virtual front.’”
Specifically, he writes, “a preventive strike with the goal of liquidating the Baltic place d’armes could become necessary from a military point of view not because someone might expect an attack from this direction but in order to preserve the line of the front (even virtual), to extend a land corridor to the blockaded group of forces in Kaliningrad, and to free up forces for actions in other, more important directions.”