Source: Chatham House

Chrystia Freeland, a member of the Canadian Parliament, Michael McFaul, U.S. Ambassador to Russia in 2012-2014, John Mearsheimer, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, Carnegie’s Dmitri Trenin, and Roger Cohen, a columnist at the New York Times, discussed the current situation in Ukraine, as well as Russian-Western relations, at Chatham House. The event was held in association with the International New York Times.

Trenin stated that “Ukraine is absolutely the most important strategic issue for Russia,” suggesting that this is where Putin’s worry over NATO enlargement comes from. Trenin explained that Putin mistrusts the West because he belives it has acted duplicitously to Russia, saying that the excessive Libyan air strike in 2011 was “a test of Western sincerity.” According to Trenin, the safe limits of NATO’s enlargement to the east have been reached, and “what we’ve seen in Georgia, what we’re seeing in Ukraine, testifies to that fact.”

Trenin underscored that Russian security obsession is based on the “flawed… post-Cold War settlement. [It] did not include Russia into a common security system with the West—as it did include Germany, as it did include Japan after the World War II.”

Speaking about the situation in Ukraine, Trenin elaborated on the events in Eastern Ukraine as “not a foreign war” for ordinary Russians. He noted that “some Russians have ceased to be on speaking terms with other Russians as a result of what’s been happening.” However, he stressed that, in his opinion, it is in Russia’s national interest to deal with Ukraine as with a foreign country instead of having to “pay for them, give them a huge vote in your councils, and then face the prospects of them turning their back on you and going.”

On the issue of Western media portrayals of the Ukrainian crisis, Trenin said that “there is too much ideology [from the Western media]—in foreign policy debates.” This is “not a good thing,” he added.

This discussion was held by Chatham House.