MOSCOW — With Russian troops massed along the border with Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin is expected to issue President Biden with an ultimatum during their video meeting Tuesday: Guarantee NATO will never expand into Ukraine or Russia might soon launch an offensive against its neighbor.
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The Kremlin has said it wants written guarantees from the Americans and its allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization that the military alliance will not expand east — both in terms of membership and Western forces.
The video call comes during an unprecedented low point in U.S.-Russia relations, especially over Ukraine, as Moscow pressures Washington to meet its demands. The White House has threatened Russia with “serious consequences” — believed to be financial sanctions that would cut the country off from the global financial system — if it pursues military action against Ukraine.
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Putin plans to outline Russia’s proposals to Biden, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday, and their talks are expected “to be quite long and substantive.”
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After a meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Stockholm last week, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that he did not even want to speculate “about whether the West would refuse to consider them. To my mind, everyone has heard President Putin and grown aware that our proposals are serious.”
Biden, however, said Friday that he “won’t accept anybody’s red line.”
Putin “is not bluffing and he is prepared to undertake a military operation against Ukraine,” said Tatiana Stanovaya, the head of a think tank called R.Politik.
But that Putin will meet with Biden amid heightened tensions between Moscow and the West shows that Putin considers Biden as someone “who is ready to talk seriously about Russian concerns,” Stanovaya said.
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“Putin really saw something in Biden,” she added. “Maybe for the first time in many, many years, Putin has a hope that with Biden, there is a real chance to try to find an understanding.”
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The two last met in Geneva in June, and though that summit resulted in few breakthroughs, it has led to more communication between the White House and the Kremlin, including several top administration officials visiting Moscow in recent months.
The Geneva meeting also came amid an earlier Russian troop buildup around Ukraine, though forces were later partially pulled back. That spring show of force was dismissed by most analysts as testing the new Washington administration’s support for Ukraine.
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The latest troop movements have caused greater alarm in the West. U.S. intelligence has found the Kremlin could be planning a multifront offensive as soon as early next year involving up to 175,000 troops, according to U.S. officials and an intelligence document obtained by The Washington Post.
The rhetoric from Russia is that it’s the one being threatened. In an address to Russia’s Foreign Ministry Board in November, Putin warned that the West has a “superficial approach to our warnings about red lines.” He pointed to how the United States and its allies supply Kyiv with lethal weapons, conduct “provocative” military exercises in the Black Sea and fly strategic bombers just 12 miles from Russia’s borders.
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He’s also warned against stationing missile-defense systems in Ukraine similar to those in Romania and Poland, claiming that they could be secret offensive weapons capable of reaching Moscow within 10 minutes.
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“For him, it’s all about personal survival,” said Pavel Felgenhauer, a Moscow-based military analyst. “If you’re sitting in the Kremlin for more than 20 years ruling Russia, you get paranoid.”
Putin could insist on NATO stopping all military cooperation with Ukraine, including training exercises, Stanovaya said. The United States has provided military support to Ukraine, including equipment such as patrol boats and Javelin antitank missiles. Biden administration officials have also said they are looking for ways to strengthen military deterrence on NATO’s eastern flank.
Putin “would like for Ukraine to know firmly that it will never be part of NATO and the West must be clear about it,” Stanovaya said. “And it means that Western politicians should not give any hopes or inspire Ukrainian elites about the prospects for NATO.”
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Practically, Kyiv’s aspirations to join the military alliance have long appeared unlikely. Despite President Volodymyr Zelensky’s renewed push this year to greenlight Ukraine’s ascension, the country hasn’t received a Membership Action Plan, the first step. Biden in June said that “school’s out” on Ukraine’s candidacy because the country still has to “clean up corruption” before it’s considered.
That’s no secret to Moscow. Dmitry Kiselyov — the host of the state television program “Vesti Nedeli” (“News of the Week”) and a leading figure in the country’s propaganda hierarchy — said Sunday that “Ukraine is taking the bait of the irresponsible nudging from the West, believing that someone there is ready to die for it. They are not.”
Some analysts have speculated that the Kremlin’s insistence on guarantees from NATO — which are unlikely to be given, and even if they are, unlikely to be trusted — could just be the pretext for plans Russia has already set in motion.
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In a commentary for the Carnegie Moscow Center, Alexander Baunov said that “these overwrought statements are an attempt to absolve itself of responsibility for its future actions: alas, Moscow had warned of the coming storm, and called for action, but to no avail.”
Mary Ilyushina and Natalia Abbakumova contributed to this report.
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