Photograph Source: Kremlin.ru – CC BY 4.0

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told an NBC interviewer last week that the expansion of the North Atlantic Treat Organization was a “violation of Russian security interests” and one of the “root causes” of the war against Ukraine. Russian officials have made these statements in their private meetings with American counterparts, but this is the most explicit public statement since the start of the war three and a half years ago. The conventional wisdom in the United States does not accept NATO expansion as a cause of the war, but I’ve been arguing since the war began that there was such linkage.

Lavrov’s comments make it clear that an end to the war with Ukraine include security guarantees for Russia as well as for Ukraine. It’s unlikely that anyone in the Trump administration understands this linkage, which means that the war is not about to reach a negotiated solution. The United States simplistically blames only President Vladimir Putin for the start of the war, but no Russian leader would have accepted the extensive U.S. and NATO buildup on Russia’s western border.

Lavrov has been critical of Trump’s failure to discuss specifics of a negotiated end to the war, which is typical of Trump’s lack of process in dealing with difficult geopolitical issues. When asked about security guarantees, Trump responded that “We haven’t even discussed the specifics.” Trump still proclaims that he doesn’t know which side to blame for the start of the war.........

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