Nick Schifrin:
For extra on all this, we flip to Victoria Nuland, undersecretary of state for political affairs. She joins me from Capitol Hill, the place she was testifying immediately.
Victoria Nuland, welcome again to the “NewsHour.”
Let’s begin by speaking concerning the path to diplomacy that President Biden laid out immediately. What’s the off-ramp that President Putin was provided?
Victoria Nuland, U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs: Effectively, Nick, as you recall, with regard to Russia’s invasion of Jap Ukraine, there’s a set of agreements on the desk for de-escalation referred to as the Minsk Agreements, which primarily entails giving a particular standing for Donbass, having elections on the market, in alternate for Russia pulling out all of its forces and returning the sovereign border to Ukraine.
So these talks, which had been fairly energetic in ’15 and ’16, have gone stale. So the U.S. is providing to play a diplomatic function in getting these reinvigorated. President Putin additionally has a lot of considerations that he likes to voice concerning the actions of NATO being destabilizing to Russia.
We’re clearly ready, because the president mentioned to President Putin and as Nationwide Safety Adviser Sullivan has mentioned publicly, to have a dialog with Russia, together with our allies and companions, about any strategic considerations that they’ve. However that is a distinct matter than whether or not Russia will get a veto over Ukraine’s future, which it doesn’t.
