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Putin Demands Quick Answers on Russian Security Concerns Putin Mixes Positive Note With Threats, Keeping West on Edge
(about 8 hours later)
MOSCOW — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia delivered sharp criticism of the West on Thursday for rising military tensions in Eastern Europe, saying that Moscow was not to blame for talk of “war, war, war” because it was merely defending historically Russian territories. MOSCOW — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Thursday sounded a positive note about the security talks he has demanded from the United States, but refused to take the threat of war against Ukraine off the table, turning his annual marathon news conference into a showcase of his ability to keep the West on edge.
He said that the Biden administration had agreed to hold talks with Russia on Moscow’s security concerns starting in January, calling it a positive sign, but added that Russia would expect quick answers on its demands. Mr. Putin said that the United States had agreed to hold meetings on Eastern European security issues early next year, conveying a slightly more upbeat message than he had just two days earlier, when he said Russia was prepared to use “military technical measures’’ to assure its security. But his highly anticipated remarks did little to tamp down fears over an ominous military buildup on Russia’s border with Ukraine.
“It was the United States that came with its missiles to our home, to the doorstep of our home,” he said, referring to NATO expansion. “And you demand from me some guarantees. You should give us guarantees. You! And right away, right now.” “I would like to underscore that on the whole, we are seeing a positive reaction for now,” Mr. Putin said at a four-hour session with reporters. “Our American partners are telling us that they are prepared to start this discussion, these talks, in the very beginning of the year in Geneva.”
Mr. Putin’s comments, at a traditional year-end news conference, were being closely watched after a drumbeat of warnings from Moscow about a potential escalation of military conflict in Ukraine. Two days earlier, Mr. Putin told a gathering of security officials that he was ready to take “military technical measures,” a reference to a possible use of force, if Russia’s security requests went unmet. But Mr. Putin soon added that Russia would not wait long for the West to address its security concerns.
Still, after weeks of ominous rhetoric, Mr. Putin did not seize the opportunity of his marquee annual appearance to markedly escalate things further. His comments largely echoed a list of demands laid out last week by Russian diplomats as Russian troops mass near the border with Ukraine. “It was the United States that came with its missiles to our home, to the doorstep of our home,” Mr. Putin said in response to a British reporter’s question as to whether he would rule out an attack on Ukraine. “And you demand from me some guarantees. You should give us guarantees. You! And right away, right now.”
What distinguished his appearance on Thursday was its appeal to a domestic audience watching live on Russian television, as he focused on what he described as threats to Russians and Russian speakers inside Ukraine. His alternately bellicose and somewhat conciliatory declarations on Ukraine provided a vivid example of the way Mr. Putin is able to control the narrative over the tensions in Eastern Europe — and keep the West guessing at his true intentions.
“Now, they tell us, ‘war, war, war,’” Mr. Putin said of the West, conveying the sense that a Western-aligned Ukraine, not Russia, intended to set off conflict. “The impression is they are planning” a military operation, he said. “And we are warned in advance, ‘Don’t get involved, don’t meddle, don’t defend these people.’ If you defend, these sanctions will follow.” At the same time, his rhetorical threats, combined with the buildup of troops on the Ukrainian border, have helped him secure something he has long sought: Washington’s attention on issues that have rankled the Kremlin for years. Many Russian officials see a creeping expansion of Western military infrastructure toward Russia’s borders, a fundamental threat, they say, to the country’s security.
Russia has already intervened militarily in Ukraine. After street protesters deposed a pro-Russia president in 2014, Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula and fomented a separatist uprising in two provinces in eastern Ukraine. At least 13,000 soldiers and civilians on both sides have died in a conflict that has continued on Ukraine’s eastern border. Last week, Russia published what many saw as an ultimatum demanding a sphere of influence in Eastern Europe: draft agreements with the United States and NATO that would bar the alliance from expanding to include Ukraine or other countries in the post-Soviet region that are not yet members, or conducting any military activity there. NATO quickly rejected the most far-reaching demands.
Mr. Putin began his appearance by focusing on domestic issues like the economy and the coronavirus. He asserted that Russia had handled the economic challenges of the virus better than other major economies, though he acknowledged a cost in lives lost and a drop in life expectancy last year. He also noted what he said were positive economic indicators, including good results in construction and a good harvest. In Washington, a senior administration official, briefing reporters shortly after Mr. Putin’s news conference, seemed to contradict Mr. Putin, saying that no date or place had yet been set for negotiations. But he said the Biden administration was willing to begin discussions with Moscow in January, as long as they cover Russian provocations like the troop movements to the Ukrainian border.
When finally asked for a “realistic prognosis” of whether Russians could expect a war this winter, Mr. Putin said he would try to answer “in a maximally short way,” but nonetheless laid out a historical justification for possible use of force, going back more than 100 years. United States intelligence agencies have said that Russia has tens of thousands of troops near the Ukrainian border, with plans to amass an invasion force of up to 175,000 soldiers.
He argued that lands that should be seen as historically part of Russia were included in the Soviet-era boundaries of Ukraine. After the Soviet breakup, Mr. Putin said, Moscow acquiesced to their loss, so long as Ukraine was neutral. But he said Russia could not tolerate the basing of foreign militaries in these areas. Mr. Putin’s positive framing of anticipated talks with the U.S. seemed to suggest that a Russian attack over the Ukrainian border was not imminent. But American intelligence officials have said in recent weeks that if Mr. Putin plans to attack — a decision they do not believe he has made — he would not be ready until later in January, when more of his troops have massed and the ground has frozen. Russia’s heavy armor could sink in the muddy territory until a hard freeze, they noted.
“They are creating on this territory an anti-Russia, with the constant sending over of contemporary weapons, brainwashing the population,” Mr. Putin said. “Imagine the historical perspective of Russia for living from now on, to be always looking over our shoulders, what is going on over there?” Sam Charap, a Russian security analyst at the RAND Corporation, said he was becoming increasingly convinced that the Russian push for negotiations was meant to buy time for possible military action.
United States intelligence agencies have said that Russia has tens of thousands of troops near the Ukrainian border, with plans to amass an invasion force of up to 175,000 soldiers. They have also said it is not yet clear whether Mr. Putin has decided to invade. “I just don’t see negotiations on these big-picture documents capable of producing results on the time frame that is being suggested,” Mr. Charap said.
Russian diplomats detailed their demands on Eastern Europe — including a written pledge from NATO not to expand east — in two ultimatums last week directed at the United States and the alliance. He said the cost of a large-scale military buildup means Mr. Putin will need to make a decision soon. “You can’t just keep this number of forces at this high readiness outside of garrison for months and months and months,” Mr. Charap said.
The proposals suggested establishing a Cold War-style security arrangement in Europe based on spheres of influence. While NATO rejected the demand to close its doors to new members, the Biden administration has agreed to negotiate broadly, offering a possible path to unwinding the tensions. Whatever Mr. Putin’s intentions, American officials say they are rallying European allies for coordinated sanctions that would snap into place as soon as military action began. It is not clear, however, that the threat of such penalties would impress Mr. Putin, who has noted that Russia has lived with Western sanctions for years.
Analysts have also weighed the possibility that Mr. Putin is looking for concessions on a range of issues, even some not directly tied to security. These include energy and pipeline negotiations in Europe. American and European officials are also continuing to monitor cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns that they say may be preparing the battlefield for any action. The senior administration official noted that such action has “often been done in advance these of sorts of incursions in the past.” The disinformation campaign has attempted to create a narrative that Ukraine is the country provoking a conflict.
That means that what Russia wants, exactly, has become something of a guessing game — leaving diplomats and security analysts hanging on every word from Mr. Putin this winter. In another sign of Western engagement, Valery V. Gerasimov, Russia’s top military commander, spoke with his British counterpart, Sir Tony Radakin, on Thursday, and with Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Wednesday. But in a move underscoring the continuing tensions, Russia on Thursday announced snap paratrooper exercises in and around Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
Mr. Putin’s marathon year-end news conferences are a longtime tradition, meant to demonstrate his stamina and authority as he answers questions for hours on end. They have also been a stage for policy pronouncements. In his assertions about bringing missiles “to our home’’ Mr. Putin appeared to be referring to missile-defense systems in Poland and Romania. He has alleged that the systems can be used for offensive purposes and could soon be installed in Ukraine; Western officials deny those claims, noting that missile interceptors are, by definition, used only to repel incoming attacks.
In his remarks on the pandemic, Mr. Putin said he had no plans to impose fines on or to criminally prosecute people hesitant to be vaccinated, though Russia has one of the lowest levels of vaccination in Europe, at 56 percent of the population. The government has not introduced vaccine mandates, and Mr. Putin said on Thursday that mandates would be counterproductive. American officials say removing missile defenses from NATO countries would undercut European security. They also say they will continue to arm Ukraine with defensive weaponry, including Javelin missiles used against Russian tanks. But because Ukraine is not a NATO member,NATO does not keep antimissile defenses or nuclear weapons there.
“We need to relate to people with respect, despite their positions,” he said, “and to patiently explain” the need to inoculate. The freewheeling news conference on Thursday was a stark demonstration of the Kremlin’s image-making of Mr. Putin as an all-around expert and benevolent leader — a “good czar” keeping local officials in check while steering the world’s biggest country. The lengthy session, meant to display Mr. Putin’s authority and stamina, included a range of questions on far-flung topics including “cancel culture’’ and Father Frost, Russia’s version of Santa Claus.
Possibilities for an escalation with Ukraine abound. Mr. Putin, speaking at an event with Defense Minister Sergey K. Shoigu on Tuesday, ruminated on the possibility that the United States had long-term plans to deploy hypersonic missiles in Ukraine, something that the United States has never suggested it intends to do. Mr. Putin has rarely ventured out of his cocoon of social distancing since the pandemic’s start, and this was the first time in two years that he had faced such a large crowd of journalists. The several hundred in attendance had to pass through a disinfectant mist to enter the news conference hall just outside the Kremlin wall, and they were seated no closer than about 50 feet from the president.
“What they are now doing on the territory of Ukraine, or trying to do, or planning to do, is not thousands of kilometers from our national borders,” Mr. Putin said. “It’s on the doorstep of our home. They just have to understand that we have nowhere left to retreat.” Reporters held up signs and shouted to get the president’s attention. A popular YouTube host asked Mr. Putin about new evidence of widespread torture in Russian prisons, to which he responded that such abuse was a “global problem,” including in the United States and France. A journalist for the B.B.C.’s Russian-language service asked about last year’s poisoning of the imprisoned leader Aleksei A. Navalny. Mr. Putin once again claims that the West had failed to provide any evidence.
Anton Troianovski reported from Moscow, and Andrew E. Kramer from Kyiv, Ukraine. “Let’s turn this page,” Mr. Putin said.
As usual, many other questions sought Mr. Putin’s help on local issues like central heating problems in the Altai region and World War II sites in need of funds in the city formerly known as Stalingrad.
There were only three questions related to Ukraine. When asked for a “realistic prognosis” of whether Russians could expect a war this winter, Mr. Putin laid out a historical justification for possible use of force, going back more than 100 years.
He argued that lands that should be seen as historically part of Russia were included in the Soviet-era boundaries of Ukraine. After the Soviet breakup, Mr. Putin said, Moscow acquiesced to their loss, so long as Ukraine was neutral. But he said Russia could not tolerate foreign militaries to be based in these areas.
“They are creating on this territory an anti-Russia, constantly sending over modern weapons and brainwashing the population,” Mr. Putin said. “Can you imagine how Russia is to live like this from a historical perspective, always looking over our shoulders at what new weapon systems have been provided over there?”
Anton Troianovski reported from Moscow, David E. Sanger from Washington, and Andrew E. Kramer from Kyiv, Ukraine.