Sergey Kislyak, Russian Federation ambassador to the United States
Russia’s ambassador to the United States is hopeful that this winter will not bring a repeat of last winter’s natural gas shut-off to Ukraine.
At a recent Baker Institute event, Ambassador Sergey Kislyak said that the two countries “have overcome a lot of differences, but not all of them.” The dispute between the Ukrainian government and Russia’s state-owned natural gas company, Gazprom, in January 2009 resulted in two-week standoff that left many Eastern Europeans without heat amid freezing temperatures.
This time around, Russian and Ukranian leaders are taking a more proactive approach, he said.
“Recently we had a meeting between Mr. Putin, the prime minister of Russia” and the Ukrainian leadership, he told the audience. “They came up with a regime that we hope will prevent us from spending the New Year on the TV screens watching how the negotiations between Gazprom and Ukraine government go. I hope this year there will be no problems.”
Relations with the Republic of Georgia, however, remain “not existent,” he said. (The two countries briefly went to war in 2008 over disputed territories. The United States’ support for the Georgian government strained relations with Russia.)
Kislyak challenged Americans to learn more about Russia, to help improve the relations between the two countries. The 2008 conflict between Russia and Georgia revealed, the ambassador said, an “astonishing” degree of misunderstanding of the situation among Americans. Kislyak also called for improving economic ties and supporting cultural diplomacy.
Remarking on a visit to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Kislyak praised the successful collaborations between Russian and American astronauts, saying that such efforts are in the best interests of both countries. “It’s one of the areas that’s become almost immune to the ups and downs in our political relationship.”
He also cited the initiatives on arms control launched by then-Secretary of State James A. Baker, III, which are currently being renegotiated to reflect changes in Russo-American relations since 1989. In addition, Kislyak noted that closer economic relations can provide “economic backup” for stable bilateral relations.
Kislyak previously served as deputy minister of foreign affairs and earlier as Russia’s ambassador to Belgium and, simultaneously, permanent representative to NATO.
— View a webcast of the Dec. 2, 2009, event “The Current State of Russian-U.S. Relations.”
–Download “Scenarios for Russian Natural Gas Exports,” a 2009 Baker Institute research paper by Dr. Peter Hartley and Dr. Kenneth B. Medlock III. The paper is part of a larger study and policy report, “Russia and the Caspian States in the Global Energy Balance.”