Thread by @althecat

Last night's joint press conference from the French and German Leaders is a very significant moment in the Ukraine crisis/standoff.

The plain reading of this is that Europe has told the UK and US to butt out. The EC's @vonderleyen is also singing the same tune.

https://twitter.com/althecat/status/1486314489637228546

Namely, the U.S. is - following @SecBlinken's failure to de-escalate the crisis on Friday with @mfa_russia's Sergey #Lavrov - no longer an acceptable interlocuter in this crisis.

The US (withdrawing embassy staff) and UK (releasing intel) since have arguably made things worse.

@SecBlinken @mfa_russia On Sunday @FareedZakaria's editorial take gives a long way to explaining why. edition.cnn.com/videos/tv/2022…

@SecBlinken @mfa_russia @FareedZakaria His simple thesis makes a lot of sense, Putin's strategy is to break NATO by driving an economic wedge on Energy between the EU and US. If the EU is forced to sanction Russia and lock off Nordstream 2 - Putin wins.

A thread on this....

https://twitter.com/althecat/status/1485363949298200581?s=20

Monday's @StateDeptSpox @StateDept briefing was extremely long and materially focussed on the issue of "increasing daylight" between the US and EU position on the crisis. Media clearly were not buying the USG spin on this. state.gov/briefings/depa…

@StateDeptSpox @StateDept One area of disagreement is Germany's decision to not supply lethal weaponry to Ukraine for example.

But the withdrawal of embassy staff from Kiev may have been a last straw. This decision certainly made headlines and upset the people and Govt. of Ukraine.

@StateDeptSpox @StateDept On the face of things, the "daylight" between the US and EU has since grown significantly wider. Technically the next step is supposed to be the U.S. providing written responses to the Russians.

And yesterday's @StateDept briefing began with a Q on this. state.gov/briefings/depa…

I am listening to this briefing now. And it is not clear to me that the U.S. has received the message. The always entertaining @APDiploWriter Matt Lee is asking exactly the right questions.

And on the current trajectory, absent the U.S. pulling in its horns, it's @NATO EU partners may be forced to more clearly tell the U.S. to stop it's escalatory comment.

And - I may be being a bit naive here - but if a widening void within NATO is the result of ongoing U.S./UK sabre rattling, then the outcome for Russia and EU relations is again, exactly what the Russian's are seeking.

This morning's US cable news notices (here @JoeNBC with the Senate Foreign Relations Cmtte chair) indicate that the US has not yet digested the implications last night's developments - and continue to play directly into Putin's hands.

At one point in their exchange @SenatorMenendez suggested that the U.S. might sanction Nordstream 2 by itself. Which seems extremely unwise.

Sen. Menendez also suggested that the U.S. Senate is in favour of pre-emptive sanctions.

None of this will be music in European ears.

Last night, Scholz and Macron talked at length (albeit very mildly) about the needs for more talks with Russia, specifically citing the #OSCE (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe) and the #NormandyFormat which is associated with the Minsk agreement.

#OSCE was mentioned in both Monday's and yesterday's @StateDept briefings (7 and 8 times respectively), and the #NormandyFormat came up in yesterday's briefing.

It will be very interesting today to see whether the EU position becomes more clearly understood over the course of the day. Right now the U.S. @StateDept at least, appears to be clueless on this.

In answer to questions from @mitchellreports in the briefing @StateDeptSpox claimed that the Europeans is entirely happy with the path of the US's bilateral "Strategic Stability" talks as they have been kept informed all the way through.

While the EU will likely not say this publicly, this entire Ukraine crisis suggests that the "Strategic Stability" talks - a key takeway from the Biden-Putin summit in June - are not working for Russia, and that possibly this arms build-up is a result of that failure.

The 2014 Ukraine Crisis during the Biden Administration was a disaster for Ukraine and the wider world - especially with respect to Climate Change after the U.S. doubled down on energy independence through fracking - indicating how tied up all of this is with energy policy.

If you are interested in this subject, yesterday's State Dept briefing is very interesting. @StateDeptSpox does his best, very professionally, but at this point in time, the U.S. policy position appears increasingly irreconcilable with that of Europe. state.gov/briefings/depa…

/ENDS

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