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Samantha Power: My Friend the Russian Ambassador
Last edited Sun Feb 26, 2017, 07:32 AM - Edit history (1)
This is what diplomats - good diplomats - do for our world every day. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/25/opinion/sunday/samantha-power-my-friend-the-russian-ambassador.html?
I was America’s permanent representative to the United Nations from 2013 until President Trump took office, and over the last few years I was probably Ambassador Churkin’s most visible foe. He faithfully defended President Vladimir V. Putin’s deadly actions in Ukraine and Syria.
At the same time, Vitaly was a masterful storyteller with an epic sense of humor, a good friend and one of the best hopes the United States and Russia had of working together. I am heartbroken by his death. . . I believe Mr. Putin’s Russia poses a grave threat to American interests and that those, like President Trump, who praise Mr. Putin — or falsely equate the destabilizing role that Russia plays in the world with that of the United States — are profoundly misguided. The Russian government has murdered its political opponents, seized territory that belongs to its sovereign neighbors, killed countless civilians in Syria and meddled in democratic elections, including in the United States. But I also believe that it is imperative that we try to build relationships with individual Russians, who are as complex and contradictory as the rest of us. Indeed, our security depends on our ability to reach across ideological divides — to understand one another, but also to try to solve problems together.
. . .
It is well known that it was Vitaly Churkin who raised his hand six times to veto Syria-related resolutions, but it is less known that it was Vitaly who worked frantically (and in the end futilely) to try to secure enough changes to the drafts that Moscow might support them. Although he was the public face of so many of Mr. Putin’s harmful actions, he was also a believer in the relationship between our two countries. When Secretary of State John Kerry and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov tried to develop a joint counterterrorism cell in Syria, Vitaly hailed the partnership with exuberance. When the effort fell apart, he urged that we try to resuscitate it. He often told me stories from his time as an interpreter in arms control negotiations during the Cold War, drawing the lesson that, when estranged, we could start cooperating again by carving out discrete areas for progress. Even when our positions were miles apart, we always took each other’s calls. . .
No matter how much our countries’ relationship deteriorated — and we saw a steep decline during our time together — we had much in common as individuals. We both loved sports . . .He and his wife, Irina, loved the theater. When I brought a group of ambassadors to Shakespeare in the Park, he was the first to leap out of his chair to ignite a standing ovation for “Cymbeline”; he didn’t hold it against me when the press covered the fact that I had brought the Russian ambassador to the L.G.B.T.-themed musical “Fun Home”; and at “Hamilton” he interrogated my law professor husband on the origins of the Constitution. I introduced him to the Cold War FX drama “The Americans,” which he made fun of as “a bit ridiculous” but nonetheless seemed to watch compulsively. I invited him and Irina to my parents’ home in Yonkers for Thanksgiving, making him the only United Nations colleague who ever entered my wild Irish family sanctum. And in one of our last one-on-one meetings, he brightened when I floated the possibility of our teaching a graduate school class together after his retirement, perhaps switching roles and each representing the other’s view.
Vitaly spent his professional life defending his country, whose culture and tradition he cherished. Although he never shared with me his view of his president, I got the sense that he valued Mr. Putin’s restoration of Russia’s relevance on the global stage, but would have preferred peaceful methods. As far as I am aware, he never considered resigning in protest over Mr. Putin’s horrors. But it is also true that, had he done so, he most likely would have been replaced by someone less willing to compromise, perversely weakening the United Nations’ ability to advance peace and security — and further undermining the United States-Russian relationship. . . If we are to get our countries’ relationship back on track — an indispensable foundation for tackling global threats — it will not be because Americans cave on our principles. It will be because we stand firm, while also never losing sight of the humanity of those with whom we fervently disagree. . . .
At the same time, Vitaly was a masterful storyteller with an epic sense of humor, a good friend and one of the best hopes the United States and Russia had of working together. I am heartbroken by his death. . . I believe Mr. Putin’s Russia poses a grave threat to American interests and that those, like President Trump, who praise Mr. Putin — or falsely equate the destabilizing role that Russia plays in the world with that of the United States — are profoundly misguided. The Russian government has murdered its political opponents, seized territory that belongs to its sovereign neighbors, killed countless civilians in Syria and meddled in democratic elections, including in the United States. But I also believe that it is imperative that we try to build relationships with individual Russians, who are as complex and contradictory as the rest of us. Indeed, our security depends on our ability to reach across ideological divides — to understand one another, but also to try to solve problems together.
. . .
It is well known that it was Vitaly Churkin who raised his hand six times to veto Syria-related resolutions, but it is less known that it was Vitaly who worked frantically (and in the end futilely) to try to secure enough changes to the drafts that Moscow might support them. Although he was the public face of so many of Mr. Putin’s harmful actions, he was also a believer in the relationship between our two countries. When Secretary of State John Kerry and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov tried to develop a joint counterterrorism cell in Syria, Vitaly hailed the partnership with exuberance. When the effort fell apart, he urged that we try to resuscitate it. He often told me stories from his time as an interpreter in arms control negotiations during the Cold War, drawing the lesson that, when estranged, we could start cooperating again by carving out discrete areas for progress. Even when our positions were miles apart, we always took each other’s calls. . .
No matter how much our countries’ relationship deteriorated — and we saw a steep decline during our time together — we had much in common as individuals. We both loved sports . . .He and his wife, Irina, loved the theater. When I brought a group of ambassadors to Shakespeare in the Park, he was the first to leap out of his chair to ignite a standing ovation for “Cymbeline”; he didn’t hold it against me when the press covered the fact that I had brought the Russian ambassador to the L.G.B.T.-themed musical “Fun Home”; and at “Hamilton” he interrogated my law professor husband on the origins of the Constitution. I introduced him to the Cold War FX drama “The Americans,” which he made fun of as “a bit ridiculous” but nonetheless seemed to watch compulsively. I invited him and Irina to my parents’ home in Yonkers for Thanksgiving, making him the only United Nations colleague who ever entered my wild Irish family sanctum. And in one of our last one-on-one meetings, he brightened when I floated the possibility of our teaching a graduate school class together after his retirement, perhaps switching roles and each representing the other’s view.
Vitaly spent his professional life defending his country, whose culture and tradition he cherished. Although he never shared with me his view of his president, I got the sense that he valued Mr. Putin’s restoration of Russia’s relevance on the global stage, but would have preferred peaceful methods. As far as I am aware, he never considered resigning in protest over Mr. Putin’s horrors. But it is also true that, had he done so, he most likely would have been replaced by someone less willing to compromise, perversely weakening the United Nations’ ability to advance peace and security — and further undermining the United States-Russian relationship. . . If we are to get our countries’ relationship back on track — an indispensable foundation for tackling global threats — it will not be because Americans cave on our principles. It will be because we stand firm, while also never losing sight of the humanity of those with whom we fervently disagree. . . .