A warning, not a negotiation to end the war

Director of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) William Burns met with his Russian counterpart in Turkey yesterday to warn Russia not to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, the White House announced. The US National Security Council specifically emphasized that Burns' meeting in Ankara was in no way an attempt to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine, and that Kiev had been notified of the meeting in advance.

The meeting between American and Russian intelligence chiefs comes at a time that some officials in the administration of US President Joe Biden see as an opportunity for possible peace talks as fighting is expected to slow down during the winter.

"During the winter it will probably be static; there will be fighting, but it will be relatively static and then a window of opportunity for negotiations opens," said Mark Miley, the chief of staff of the US armed forces, last Sunday.

However, Biden insists that Ukraine, not the United States, will dictate whether and when negotiations to end the war will begin, the New York Times writes. The newspaper points out that there are disagreements at the highest level in the US government about whether to pressure Ukraine to seek a diplomatic end to the war with Russia, and that the US chief of staff is calling for a closed-door meeting in order for Ukraine to consolidate recent progress.

The Russian newspaper "Komersant" announced yesterday that the Russian delegation in Ankara is headed by Sergei Naryshkin, head of the Russian foreign intelligence service.

Russian and Ukrainian officials have issued separate statements in recent weeks about potential peace talks, more than six months after the last known direct talks broke down. However, US officials, despite some media reporting that they are putting pressure on the government in Kiev, said that they do not believe that the negotiations will start quickly and that both sides believe that the continuation of the fighting, for now, will strengthen their possible negotiating positions.

American and European leaders see their goal as preventing a spillover from war and dissuading President Vladimir Putin from using tactical nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction.

Burns' meeting with Naryshkin, the first high-level face-to-face contact between the US and Russia since the start of the war in February, comes at a tense moment during a war in which Russian forces are facing a series of military defeats, the Financial Times points out.

Russian forces withdrew from Kherson last Sunday, stripping Putin of control over the only regional capital Russia captured during the nine-month invasion. The Russian president is also faced with the possibility of losing control over the territory he annexed at a ceremony in the Kremlin in September, the FT points out.

Dmitry Peskov, Putin's spokesman, said yesterday that he can "only" say that Kherson is "the territory of the Russian Federation", while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the city to the general delight of soldiers and locals who have been living under Russian occupation since March and said that Ukraine will not stop until it regains the entire territory.

Nuclear tensions intensified last month after Russia accused Ukraine of planning to use an explosive device containing radioactive material known as a "dirty bomb", fueling fears that Moscow could launch a "false flag attack" and blame it on Kiev.

However, US officials said fears were allayed after a telephone conversation between Western defense chiefs and their Russian counterpart, Sergei Shoigu.

Speaking at a conference last month, Putin said that Russia will not use nuclear weapons in Ukraine because it "makes no military or political sense", although he repeated the claims about the alleged Ukrainian "dirty bomb".

The Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, when asked about the meeting of intelligence chiefs in Ankara, said that the UN was not involved.

It is believed that Burns and Naryshkin also discussed the exchange of prisoners.

Biden said earlier this month that he hoped Putin would be willing to seriously discuss a prisoner swap to secure the release of basketball star Brittney Griner, who was sentenced to nine years in a Russian penal colony on drug charges.

Former US Marine Paul Whelan, who holds US, British, Canadian and Irish passports, was sentenced to 2020 years in prison in 16 after being convicted of espionage.

Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer convicted in the United States, has been mentioned as a person who could be exchanged for Grinerova and Vilan, according to the FT.