Joe Biden‘s national security adviser is said to be involved in ‘confidential conversations’ with top Putin aides in an effort to prevent nuclear war.
United States officials told the Wall Street Journal on Sunday how Jake Sullivan has been meeting with Yuri Ushakov, a foreign policy adviser to Putin, and his direct counterpart, Nikolai Potrushev, to warn against escalating the war in Ukraine — though they will not discuss any potential settlements of the conflict.
Several officials who spoke to the Journal about Sullivan’s discussions with Russian officials have said he is known within the White House for pushing a line of communication with Russia, even when others thought it would be fruitless.
The White House has previously said maintaining some level of contact with Moscow is imperative for achieving mutual national security interests, especially after Putin warned of using nuclear weapons.
At the same time, though, US officials are also said to be pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to drop his ban on talks with Putin and negotiate an end to the fighting.
Biden had originally sought to forge a relationship with Putin when he fist came into office, meeting with him at a summit in Geneva in June 2021.
But by that October, US intelligence indicated that Russian forces were preparing to invade Ukraine.
The US president then spoke with Putin in December 2021 and again in February 2022 to avert a Russian attack — but his efforts failed when Russian forces invaded Ukraine on February 24.
Since then, officials say, Sullivan has taken a leading role in coordinating the Biden administration’s policy and plans in response to the war and had been involved in diplomatic efforts.
In fact, when Putin hinted in September that Russia might resort to nuclear weapons, Sullivan said the Biden administration ‘had communicated directly, privately at very high levels to the Kremlin that any use of nuclear weapons will be met with catastrophic consequences for Russia.’
He did not specify at the time how the Biden administration spoke to Russian officials.
And in a March conversation with Patrushev, Sullivan is sad to have told the Russian official that Moscow’s forces should stop attacking Ukraine cities and towns, and warned the Kremlin not to use chemical or biological weapons.
