2.25.22
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration said on Friday that Russia was never serious about finding a diplomatic solution to the crisis over Ukraine, and that weeks of back-and-forth between Washington and Moscow amounted to a sham as the Kremlin prepared for war. “Moscow engaged in the pretense of diplomacy,” the State Department spokesman, Ned Price, told reporters at a daily news conference. “It now appears quite clear that Russia was not, and has not been, interested in genuine diplomacy.” Mr. Price’s words were the most definitive statement yet by the Biden administration that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had not dealt in good faith, even as Russian diplomats repeatedly met face to face with their American and European counterparts. Washington and Moscow also exchanged multiple rounds of formal documents on European security. The assessment was a departure from assertions made by U.S. officials in recent months that, despite the Russian forces amassing along Ukraine’s border, Mr. Putin remained undecided on whether to order an invasion.
President Biden noted in public remarks last month that the widely accepted truth was that Ukraine was “not very likely” to join NATO anytime soon. Charles A. Kupchan, who was Europe director of the National Security Council in the Obama White House, said Mr. Putin’s muted response to such talk suggested that more explicit proposals to keep Ukraine out of NATO would have been futile. As Russian forces closed in on Kyiv this week, the issue of Ukraine’s neutrality was raised once again — this time by the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, in a televised address. Looking depleted and wearing a simple T-shirt, Mr. Zelensky rallied his fellow Ukrainians against the Russian attack. But he also had an offer for Mr. Putin, hinting that his country might at last drop its ambitions to join NATO. “We are not afraid to talk about neutral status,” Mr. Zelensky said. Mr. Putin had no reply.