Sullivan Dissects Putin’s War Strategy and U.S. Diplomatic Challenges — The Heights

Former U.S. Ambassador John Sullivan said Russian President Vladimir Putin sees a ceasefire in Ukraine as a sign of weakness, and with the war nearing its third year, he predicts no end in sight. 

“[Putin] is on a highway to achieve his goals,” Sullivan said. “He will use a ceasefire to regroup, refit, but he will not—he cannot—change his war aims, given the sacrifices the Russians and the Russian people have made.”

Sullivan, who served as U.S. ambassador to Russia from 2020 to 2022, framed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as Putin’s response to U.S.-led Western expansion during his talk at the Yawkey Athletic Center on Tuesday night. 

According to Sullivan, Putin views the conflict as essential to restoring Russia’s fractured unity. 

“Russia is an enemy of the United States—not my words, that’s Vladimir Putin’s words,” Sullivan said. “The U.S., according to Putin, has started a war against Russia—in Ukraine—and that is why Putin had to launch the so-called special military operation on February 24, 2022, as a response to the war that the United States started against Russia.”

For Putin, Sullivan said, the war is not about territory—it is personal. 

“This isn’t a border dispute that’s going to be solved by measuring latitude and longitude,” Sullivan said.

Sullivan argued that Putin views the invasion of Ukraine as a chance to reunite Russians divided by an artificial Western border, likening it to Hitler’s vision of a fragmented Germany under threat from foreign enemies.

This is the equivalent of Hitler saying, ‘our Prussian homeland, our volk,’” Sullivan said. “‘We’re separated by this phony border in the east.’ Putin has got a phony border in the West. It’s separating the Russian people from their fellow Russians.”

In Putin‘s eyes, Sullivan added, there has been a genocide against ethnic Russians living in Ukraine.

Sullivan also pointed out that Putin’s unwillingness to accept the loss of the Cold War has deepened his desire to reclaim what he sees as Russian territory in Ukraine.

“I was told by a prominent Russian scholar that we Americans underestimate the wound to the Russian psyche of losing the Cold War, and Putin feels that to his core,” he said.

Sullivan argued that American diplomats must understand that Russia is not just waging a war against Ukraine, but also the United States. 

“He’s at war with us,” Sullivan said. “Until we recognize that, we will fail in diplomacy and negotiations with the Russian Federation.“

The U.S. cannot engage in good-faith negotiations with Russia, and if it does, it will be on a path toward failure, Sullivan said.

“Whatever we offer will be pocketed by the Russians and used against us,” Sullivan said. “They will interpret that as a sign of weakness.”

Sullivan warned that Putin’s contempt for the West runs so deep that he has no qualms about orchestrating assassinations on foreign soil. Without U.S. countermeasures, he predicted, an attempt on American soil could harm innocent civilians.

“I guarantee you he has such contempt for the United States and for his opponents,” Sullivan said. 

Ultimately, if the war were to end, Sullivan said, it must be a movement led by the Russian people themselves.

“The Russian people have to make these decisions, and just replacing Putin isn’t going to convince a lot of Russians that the war he started—his government started—is wrong,” Sullivan said.

Related