This Is How Washington Can Prevent a Propaganda Victory for Putin

During his annual press conference, the Russian president once again made demands of the West. Not everything Vladimir Putin says has to be taken seriously. However, on certain points it would be worth it for the West to acknowledge him a bit.

In his press conference on Thursday, Putin repeated his demands to the West: no expansion of NATO, no Western mid-range rockets in Europe, de facto recognition of a Russian sphere of interest in Eastern Europe against the interests of former Soviet satellites and over the heads of Europeans.

It’s no surprise that Putin once again told the fairy tale that Russia received verbal guarantees that NATO would not accept any new members. For years, Putin’s yearly press conference has been nothing more than a good opportunity for him to get his propaganda messages into international media channels at the end of the year.

Not everything Putin says has to be taken seriously. The boss of the Kremlin is a performance artist who expertly deflects critical questions from journalists and always exploits new diversionary maneuvers. Despite this, politicians must talk with him.

Washington is puzzling over what to do about the Russian wish list. Putin himself must be aware that a general pause on expanding NATO is just as impossible as a halt on military activities in countries that are already members of the alliance. No one can turn back the clock to 1997, certainly not after Russia’s aggression in Georgia and Ukraine.

What America could do with Putin’s wish list is to divide it up into individual demands. Washington can talk about some of them with a clear conscience. This includes the proposal to refrain from deploying ground-based mid- and short-range weapons that could strike the other country’s territory.

Or the idea of reducing the risk of an unintended escalation by better coordinating flyovers in the Baltics and the Black Sea region — this has been a source of tension for years. There would be no reason to object to consultations desired by Moscow or a hotline between NATO and Russia.

Whether the talks on such points will yield results and whether Russia will even propose them in good faith will be clarified in a next step together with Moscow. In any case, if Washington at least considers the proposals, it would rule out a propaganda victory for the Kremlin. But this victory will occur if the Americans flatly refuse to engage in dialogue with Putin.