LONDON, June 6 (Reuters) – Russia should not close US embassy despite crisis triggered by war in Ukraine because the world’s two largest nuclear powers must keep talking, the US ambassador said on Monday to Moscow.
President Vladimir Putin has put the invasion of Ukraine as a turning point in Russian history: a revolt against US hegemony, which the Kremlin leader says has humiliated Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Ukraine – and its Western supporters – say it is fighting for its survival against a reckless imperial-style landfall that has killed thousands, displaced more than 10 million people and reduced the country’s wastelands.
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In a clear attempt to send a message to the Kremlin, John J. Sullivan, the US ambassador appointed by President Donald Trump, told the Russian state news agency TASS that Washington and Moscow should not simply sever ties. diplomatic.
“We need to preserve the ability to talk to each other,” Sullivan told TASS in an interview. He warned against the withdrawal of Lev Tolstoy’s works from Western shelves or the refusal to play Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s music.
His statements were reported by TASS in Russian and translated into English by Reuters.
Despite crises, espionage scandals, and the Cold War, the relationship between Moscow and Washington has not been broken since the United States established ties with the Soviet Union in 1933.
Now, however, Russia says its post-Soviet relationship with the West is over and will turn east.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken joked last month that he would like to dedicate “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” by Taylor Swift to Putin.
Asked about this comment, Sullivan said, “We won’t be completely separated either.”
When TASS asked him if the analogy meant that embassies could be closed, Sullivan said: “Well, there is this possibility, although I think it would be a big mistake.
“As far as I understand, the Russian government has mentioned the option of breaking off diplomatic relations,” he said. “We can’t break off diplomatic relations and stop talking to each other.”
Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Monday summoned the heads of the Moscow office of the US media to discuss the repercussions of US hostilities.
Tsarina Catherine the Great’s refusal to support the British Empire when America declared independence laid the groundwork for the first diplomatic contacts between the United States and St. Petersburg, then the imperial capital of Russia.
After the Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917, President Woodrow Wilson refused to recognize Vladimir Lenin’s revolutionary government, and the U.S. embassy closed in 1919. Relations were not restored until 1933.
“The only reason I think the United States will be forced to close its embassy would be if it becomes insecure to continue its work,” Sullivan said.
Asked how the relationship would develop, Sullivan, a 62-year-old lawyer, said he did not know, but added that he hoped that one day there would be a rapprochement.
“If I had to make a bet, I’d say maybe not in life.”
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Report by Guy Faulconbridge; edited by Philippa Fletcher
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