Category Archives: Russia

U.S. Declares Cuba Normal Despite Terror History

Posted on by

As you read this short notice, consider that now that relations with Cuba have been formally normalized, will the next step be to turn Guantanamo over to Cuba and terminate the lease, which was designed in perpetuity?

Kerry signed the order on Cuba today placing Cuba back to a pre-Cold War status. Only 3 countries left that carry the distinction of a state sponsor of terror .

The step comes as officials from the countries continue to hash out details of restoring full diplomatic relations, including opening embassies in Washington and Havana and returning ambassadors to the two countries. Friday’s removal of Cuba from the terrorism list had been a key Cuban demand.

President Barack Obama recommended to Congress last month that Cuba be removed from the U.S. list, triggering a 45-day congressional notification period.

State Sponsors of Terrorism

 

Countries determined by the Secretary of State to have repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism are designated pursuant to three laws: section 6(j) of the Export Administration Act, section 40 of the Arms Export Control Act, and section 620A of the Foreign Assistance Act. Taken together, the four main categories of sanctions resulting from designation under these authorities include restrictions on U.S. foreign assistance; a ban on defense exports and sales; certain controls over exports of dual use items; and miscellaneous financial and other restrictions.

Designation under the above-referenced authorities also implicates other sanctions laws that penalize persons and countries engaging in certain trade with state sponsors. Currently there are three countries designated under these authorities: Iran, Sudan, and Syria.

Country Designation Date
Iran January 19, 1984
Sudan August 12, 1993
Syria December 29, 1979

Recommendation to Rescind Cuba’s Designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism

(Apr. 14): In December 2014, as a critical component of establishing a new direction for U.S.–Cuba relations, the President directed the State Department to launch a review of Cuba’s designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism and provide a report to him within six months. Last week, the State Department submitted a report to the White House recommending, based on the facts and the statutory standard, that President Obama rescind Cuba’s designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism.

Country Reports on Terrorism

U.S. law requires the Secretary of State to provide Congress, by April 30 of each year, a full and complete report on terrorism with regard to those countries and groups meeting criteria set forth in the legislation. This annual report is entitled Country Reports on Terrorism. Beginning with the report for 2004, it replaced the previously published Patterns of Global Terrorism.

The U.S. State Department keeps a summary and classification on countries. To read further on those go here.

No Longer Nuclear Zero

Posted on by

The nuclear weapons chatter is rising by the day. The Saudis paid for much of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program that included an agreement to access to weapons at a future date. The ongoing talks the P5+1 with Iran has Saudi Arabia dusting off their immediate options. The White House and John Kerry are seeing a final date slippage with regard to the June 30 deadline, but to what end?

There has been recent inquiries into Israel’s nuclear program exposing their weapons systems, something that has never been previously discussed.

Vladimir Putin has recently increased his own nuclear points and expansion of flights by his nuclear bombers that include the Ukraine, Poland and northern Europe. This has NATO expressing distress and a counter-measures strategy.

Yet Russia has had some chilling nuclear weapons program history putting the world that includes jihadi network into the equation.

Breakdown in U.S.-Russia relations raises risk of nuclear-armed jihadists

In the last several years, a number of troubling events have revealed weaknesses in Russian nuclear security. A Russian general in command of nuclear weapon storage sites was fired due to massive corruption. A colonel in the Russian Ministry of Interior in charge of nuclear security inspections was arrested for soliciting bribes to overlook security violations. One American researcher visiting a nuclear facility was told it would take merely $100 to bribe his way in.

Graft in Russia is rife, and corruption plus available uranium is a troubling combination. This vulnerability is heightened by the fact that at many nuclear sites the accounting systems to track uranium and plutonium could not sufficiently identify thefts of newly manufactured or older stored fissile materials. More broadly, Russia does not possess a master baseline inventory of all nuclear materials produced in the former Soviet Union — and where all of it is today.

At a 2010 summit of world leaders, President Barack Obama described nuclear terrorism as “the single biggest threat to U.S. security.” He’s right — but as the crisis in Ukraine festers, recent U.S. actions have unraveled decades of successful cooperation with Russia to reduce the risk.

While some argue that the United States needs to “punish” Russia due to Moscow’s contribution to the crisis in Ukraine, this is akin to cutting off our nose to spite our face. Given the threat from “loose nukes” to our national security, the United States should take steps to jump-start U.S.-Russian nuclear security cooperation.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, American policymakers suddenly faced a frightening new threat: Poverty and chaos caused a complete breakdown in security throughout the former Soviet nuclear complex. Insiders at top-secret Russian nuclear weapons plants tried to steal and sell nuclear materials on the black market. Unpaid guards at nuclear sites left their posts to search for food. A senior White House science adviser even discovered more than 150 pounds of highly enriched uranium — enough for several nuclear bombs — sitting unguarded in lockers in the middle of Moscow.

In response to this threat, the United States spent billions of dollars under the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program to help Russia secure its nuclear materials and facilities. From the deactivation of almost 8,000 Russian nuclear warheads to the building of a massive storage facility for 27 tons of fissile materials, CTR was arguably the most successful American foreign aid program in history.

Following the conclusion of the CTR program in 2013, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and Russia’s state-owned nuclear company Rosatom signed a comprehensive nuclear cooperation agreement. This agreement, which was designed to build trust between the two countries, called for projects ranging from the development of advanced nuclear security and safety technologies, to visits by each side’s scientists to the other’s most sensitive nuclear labs and facilities.

Less than seven months after the agreement was signed, however, the DOE dealt a devastating blow to Russian-American nuclear security cooperation, banning Russian nuclear scientists from visiting the United States while also banning DOE nuclear scientists from visiting Russia.

The current defense budget, passed seven months after the DOE’s action, also bars all funding for nuclear nonproliferation activities and assistance in Russia.

Its pride wounded, Russia retaliated, first announcing it would boycott the 2016 nuclear security summit in Chicago and then informing U.S. officials it would no longer accept American aid to help secure Russia’s weapons-grade uranium and plutonium — a significant blow to U.S. national security.

Nuclear security in Russia is undoubtedly better than it was in the 1990s. Guards at nuclear sites are paid on time. Perimeter fences surrounding these sites no longer have holes. Fissile materials are no longer stored in lockers. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that while physical security at nuclear sites is greatly improved, real problems still remain. Russia continues to have the world’s largest nuclear stockpile and there are more than 200 buildings and bunkers where highly enriched uranium or separated plutonium is stored. Sophisticated criminals could still exploit the remaining weaknesses in Russian nuclear security.

We know that Osama bin Laden considered a nuclear attack targeting American civilians to be a legitimate action, and last year Islamic State stole 88 pounds of non-enriched uranium compounds from a university in Mosul. With nearly 2,000 Russian citizens fighting with Middle East extremist groups, if fissile material does end up in the hands of militants, it is quite possible it will have originated from Russia.

The DOE should work with Rosatom to restart the September 2013 agreement and implement the reciprocal nuclear site visits, scientist-to-scientist cooperation and joint-research the agreement envisions. The personal relationships developed over decades of cooperation between Russian and American scientists are too important to jeopardize — we are only shooting ourselves in the foot by cutting these off.

The United States should also understand that the narrative from the 1990s whereby the United States is a donor and Russia is an aid recipient is no longer acceptable in Moscow. Going forward, nuclear cooperation must be reframed as a partnership of equals, with both sides contributing to the conversation about how and why to strengthen security. Republicans and Democrats should put aside partisan differences and fully fund U.S.-Russian nuclear security cooperation — whatever that ultimately involves. The Obama administration is proposing to spend $348 billion upgrading the U.S. nuclear arsenal over the next ten years. It’s worth spending a tiny fraction of that money to prevent loose nukes.

All of these steps require that the United States end the linkage between nuclear security cooperation with Russia and the crisis in Ukraine. While the current political environment makes this difficult, not doing so is foolhardy.

*** Yet there is nuclear weapons and testing history that is important to understand and an example is the Marshall Islands and the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty. Fascinating read is here. A declassified video is below:

 

Military Dominance Under Obama, Lost

Posted on by

Just about every country across the globe relies on the United States military for defense, support and technology. Yet under the current sequestration which was concocted by the Obama White House, the United States and NATO’s competitive edge is no longer a possibility or probability as compared to Russia and China.

The Air Force’s continued budgetary constraints are limiting its ability to maintain dominance over competitors such as China and Russia, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Frank Kendall said Sept. 17.“Today, the predominance that our military has enjoyed for decades confronts powerful enemies,” Kendall said at the Air Force Association’s annual conference at National Harbor, Maryland. Kendall was pinch-hitting for Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, who could not make it to the keynote address. Rather than deliver his own speech, Kendall read from Hagel’s prepared remarks.

 
The Air Force is tasked with being the greatest air power in the world, he said, but is being asked to maintain its edge with fewer resources. And the reason it has fewer resources is the current budget environment, he said.
The Obama White House predicted that the conflict with Islamic State, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Iraq and Syria will bleed into the next administration, but at what cost and why?
At issue in Washington today is the The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) which has passed the Senate. The dispute is this legislation required security clearance to gain access to the language and most have not read the framework while the entire bill is not fully written much less accessible. Another why? Well maybe it has something to do with China. One must ask could Barack Obama be setting the table for a future conflict with China and or Russia all while sequestration is destroying our military dominance and readiness?
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is now being touted as the answer to U.S. security concerns with the People’s Republic of China. This is just the latest argument from TPP proponents to advance fast track trade negotiating authority in Congress and to ease passage for the TPP under expedited and preferential procedures. Unfortunately, this argument just doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. Over the last several years China has assumed an increasingly aggressive role in Asia. Its posture challenges the interests of many of its neighbors; Japan, for example, has scrambled jets repeatedly as China has tested the perimeters of its defense and confronted fishing and other vessels. China has challenged the maritime interests of other nations in the South and East China Seas. China has laid claim to small land masses as a way of expanding its territorial interests and is shoring up small reefs with airstrips and outposts to counter the interests of others in the region. China has tried to establish offshore oil rigs in waters claimed by Vietnam and is directly countering the interests of other nations in the region.
The following is a May 21, 2015 letter from Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and ranking member Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) to Secretary of Defense Ash Carter asking the Pentagon not to invite the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy to the international Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercises in 2016 due primarily to China’s extensive reclamation efforts in contested areas in the South China Sea. Letter is found here.
There is no doubt that not only is there no defined campaign strategy to deal with ISIS in Syria and Iraq, but looking ahead there is no strategy to deal with China and Russia.
Iran says ‘Obama has not done a DAMN THING to confront ISIS’, even accusing Obama of being ‘an accomplice in the plot’

“Obama has not done a damn thing so far to confront ISIS; doesn’t that show that there is no will in America to confront it?”

This is what Qassem Suleimani said about U.S. President Obama, who has become the laughing-stock throughout the Muslim world, even accusing Obama as “being an accomplice in the plot”.

Suleimani is no small fry. He could only advance to his stature as result of Obama’s exit strategy in Iraq to become the head of Iran’s Quds Force as well as Iran’s appointee, to manage Iran’s external affairs (specifically in Iraq), which made him the most powerful operative in the Middle East. The U.S. has no say so in Iraq and Suleimani is flexing his muscle to tell the world that Iran is now roosting in Iraq.

In Iran, the daily newspaper Javan, which is seen as close to the Revolutionary Guard, quoted Soleimani as saying the U.S. didn’t do a “damn thing” to stop the extremists’ advance on Ramadi.

 

Financial Structure of ISIS and a Phone App

Posted on by

Follow the money, we know where it comes from and where it goes. Islamic State uses the same mafia model, theft, extortion, payment for protection, winning the hearts and minds and then a phone app. Personally I had a gut feeling that there was a Russian component and well, there is…

This also creates a couple of extra issues. Will anyone challenge Russia to stop the app technology and is the West willing to compete with ISIS financially, meaning more than $2 million per day?

ISIS Finances Are Strong

By SARAH ALMUKHTAR

The Islamic State has revenue and assets that are more than enough to cover its current expenses despite expectations that airstrikes and falling oil prices would hurt the group’s finances, according to analysts at RAND Corporation, a nonprofit that researches public policy.

ISIS Relies on Extortion and Taxation

The Islamic State takes in more than $1 million per day in extortion and taxation. Salaries of Iraqi government employees are taxed up to 50 percent, adding up to at least $300 million last year; companies may have their contracts and revenue taxed up to 20 percent. As other revenue streams have stalled, like banks and oil, the Islamic State has adjusted these rates to make taxation a larger portion of its income.

ISIS’ estimated assets as of the fall of Mosul in June 2014

$875 mil.

ISIS’ estimated major revenue sources in 2014

$600 mil.

Extortion and taxation in Iraq

$500 mil.

Stolen from state-owned banks in Iraq

$100 mil.

Oil

Kidnapping ransoms

$20 mil.

ISIS’ estimated assets as of the fall of Mosul in June 2014

$875 mil.

ISIS’ estimated major revenue sources in 2014

$600 mil.

Extortion and taxation in Iraq

$500 mil.

Stolen from state-owned banks in Iraq

$100 mil.

Oil

Kidnapping ransoms

$20 mil.

ISIS’ estimated assets as of

the fall of Mosul in June 2014

$875 mil.

ISIS’ estimated major

revenue sources in 2014

Extortion and taxation in Iraq

$600 mil.

Stolen from state-owned banks in Iraq

$500 mil.

Oil

$100 mil.

Kidnapping ransoms

$20 mil.

Oil Is Not the Main Source of Cash

The Islamic State’s oil infrastructure, especially refineries, has been targeted by the United States-led airstrikes. Oil revenue has fallen to about $2 million per week, but the group is not dependent on oil income. Much of the production is used for its own fuel. Past oil sales show that the Islamic State was already selling oil at deep discounts that fluctuated between local markets — for instance, selling oil for less in Kirkuk than in Mosul.

Smoke is seen rising from the Baiji oil refinery on April 18, 2015, during ongoing clashes for control.

A U.S. airstrike on the Islamic State-controlled Mayadin modular oil refinery in Syria on Sept. 24, 2014.
The New York Times|Sources: NASA/USGS Landsat, U.S. Central Command

ISIS Invests in People, Not Infrastructure

The largest expenditure is salaries, which is estimated to be between $3 million and $10 million every month. The Islamic State also invests in police-state institutions, such as committees, media, courts, and market regulation, but provides relatively few services. The group avoids investment in infrastructure because it can be an easy target for attacks, and the territory it holds can change quickly.

Islamic State fighters stand guard at a checkpoint in in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. Reuters

ISIS Keeps Its Costs Low

The group minimizes costs by looting military equipment, appropriating land and infrastructure, and paying relatively low salaries. The group also limits its vulnerability by shifting operations, transitioning between expanding its territory and fueling terrorist activity. The Islamic State’s loss of ground in Tikrit last month, for example, has not stopped it from launching attacks in other parts of Iraq and Syria and taking the Iraqi city of Ramadi this weekend.

Islamic State fighters march in the Syrian city of Raqqa in an image posted on a militant website on Jan. 14, 2014. Uncredited/Militant Website, via Associated Press

Now for that phone app…

IS Militants Use Popular Russian Web Payment System To Raise Cash

A  group of Islamic State (IS) militants from Russia’s North Caucasus region are using the popular Russian QIWI wallet electronic payment system to raise money online.

The group’s use of the QIWI wallet sheds light on how individual factions within IS carry out their own fundraising and outreach, and shows that this particular group has managed to raise cash openly using mainstream resources in Russia even though Moscow has banned IS and donating money to it illegal.

The militants involved in the fundraising are doing so through an unofficial Russian-language IS media activist group, ShamToday, which mostly comprises people from the North Caucasus who are with IS in Syria and Iraq.

ShamToday is closely associated with the Chechen-led IS fighting faction Katibat al-Aqsa, a group known to have been close to IS’s military commander in Syria, Umar al-Shishani.

A key ShamToday figure, a Chechen militant named Ilyas Deniev, was killed last month in clashes in Baiji in Iraq.

Another figure associated with the group is a prominent social media activist who goes by the name Murad Atajev. It is thought that Atajev, who maintains accounts on Facebook and VKontakte, operates out of Turkey.

ShamToday first emerged in 2013 on Russia’s VKontakte social-networking website, where the group initially had its own dedicated page. Since VKontakte banned its page several months ago as part of a crackdown on pro-IS propaganda, ShamToday has shifted to using a number of different VKontakte accounts and specific hashtags to spread its propaganda, a method used by other IS groups on various social-media platforms.

Unlike other IS media groups, ShamToday has not been involved in producing video propaganda.

Instead, its main activities are recruitment and outreach to IS sympathizers in the Russian Federation, mostly by spreading news about IS’s activities in Syria and Iraq, sharing Russian audio recordings of lectures given by IS preachers and ideologues, and organizing online pro-IS seminars via its dedicated channel on Zello, a social-media app that is widely used by IS to broadcast sermons.

ShamToday’s Zello sermons frequently involve IS’s most prominent North Caucasus ideologues, including a Chechen named Musa Abu Yusuf Shishani, who has previously called on Chechens in Europe to carry out attacks against civilians, and Abu Jihad, an ethnic Karachai who is a close confidant of Umar al-Shishani.

Raising Funds For The ‘Caliphate’

A recent advertisement published by ShamToday includes a request for donations via the QIWI wallet system.

The request for donations does not say what the money will be used for but uses an interesting call to action to persuade supporters in Russia and Central Asia to donate: the Koran’s Surat al-Tawbah, which instructs Muslims to “fight against the disbelievers collectively as they fight against you collectively.”

The donation request also includes an advertisement for two of ShamToday’s Zello channels, including one named Novosti Khalifata (“Caliphate News”) which the group uses to spread information about IS’s advances in Syria and Iraq to a Russian-speaking audience.

Other Russian-speaking militants associated with IS are also using QIWI accounts to fundraise. A post on the “Official Page KHILAFA” account on VKontakte, which posts news about IS in Syria and Iraq, also includes a QIWI account number and requests for donations.

Why Use QIWI?

Ironically, the ShamToday militants prefer to use QIWI for the same reason as millions of security-conscious Russians: the service allows people to transfer money electronically without having to transmit sensitive bank account information, and without having to have a bank account in the first place.

IS sympathizers who want to donate to ShamToday can do so at a dedicated QIWI kiosk (Russia had over 169,000 of these in 2013) or via their smartphone, by transferring money from their own QIWI account to the ShamToday account number, provided by the group on its donation request.

Besides Russia, QIWI is also available to consumers in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan. QIWI users in these countries even make transfers abroad, including to Turkey, where the ShamToday account is most likely based.

The account number provided by ShamToday is a Russian mobile-phone number, which is most likely an untraceable anonymous SIM card and not a working number belonging to a member of ShamToday. Attempts to reach the phone number produced an automated message that said the phone was switched off or outside its provider’s coverage area.

Combating Terror Financing

The use of electronic payment systems like QIWI by banned groups is not new.

Russian lawmakers have taken steps to try to quash the use of electronic payment systems like QIWI for terrorist financing.

In January 2014, a group of lawmakers from Russia’s United Russia party (including Shamsail Saraliev, the former External Affairs Minister for the Chechen Republic) and the far-right Liberal Democratic Party of Russia put forward amendments to existing electronic payment legislation, as part of a counterterrorism package.

The proposed amendments initially called for banning all anonymous transfers over 5,000 rubles, a move that caused QIWI stock to plummet 19 percent on January 15, 2014.

However, when the final version of the amended law passed on May 5, 2014, anonymous payments under 15,000 rubles were retained, although the legislation did ban anonymous payments of any size if they were between individuals rather than companies or other organizations.

The open use of QIWI by ShamToday suggests that this legislation has not deterred some extremist groups from using the electronic payment system to raise funds in Russia.

In a response to an inquiry by RFE/RL about the use of its services by ShamToday, QIWI said that it “condemns and does not support terrorist, extremist and other illegal activities” and that it was operating in “strict compliance with applicable legislation including legislation to combat money laundering of criminal funds and terror financing.”

“The company is taking all necessary and applicable legal measures to protect its services from penetration by criminal proceeds and also to minimize the risk of the company being involved in the laundering of proceeds from criminal activities and terrorist financing,” QIWI said in an e-mail.

Kerry’s Groveling Continues

Posted on by

There is not a single State Department mission or a White House global challenge that does not require cooperation, check that, the groveling by Kerry to Iran or Russia. Diplomacy in 140 characters or less. Cant make this up.

Please Iran, we need an agreement to sign with the P5+1 on the nuclear program and we will allow Iranian hostilities to continue in Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Syria and Yemen. Kerry has proven to ignore the hegemony of Iran in all corners of the globe and the historical terrorism at the hands of the Ayatollahs. Then enter Russia, where Putin and Lavrov agree to cooperate but there are never any breakthroughs unless Putin’s demands are met and his own aggressions are ignored as witnessed by Crimea and Ukraine. A side note, 6100 people have been killed in Ukraine since Putin occupied the eastern region there.

So, in a rather quick trip to meet with Russian leadership, some clandestine agenda items are in the near future. Twitter is the communication platform of choice, at least for John Kerry. Sheesh…

There the readout of the meeting was ‘frank’ face to face talk. What? Putin is former KGB, frank talk? Hardly.

Ties between Moscow and Washington were shredded when Russia seized the southern Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in early 2014 and allegedly buttressed separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Kerry visited Sochi after Obama snubbed Russia’s huge military parade to commemorate Soviet victory over Nazi Germany last week, in what was seen as punishment over Russia’s meddling in Ukraine.

Earlier in the day, Kerry and Lavrov laid wreaths at a World War II memorial to pay tribute to the Soviet dead.

On the balmy shores of the Black Sea, the top US diplomat’s Russian hosts also treated Kerry to locally made sparkling wine, according to Putin’s aides, while Lavrov gave his counterpart two baskets of potatoes and tomatoes.

Kerry-Putin Talks Could Deliver a Global Surprise

At 8:12 a.m. last Tuesday, Secretary of State Kerry Tweeted from Sochi, the Black Sea resort, with this mind-blower: “Had frank discussions with President #Putin & FM #Lavrov on key issues including #IranTalks, #Syria, #Ukraine.”

In 140 characters and a photograph, Kerry may have described the biggest thing he’ll get done as President Obama’s top diplomat. It’s early days and anything can happen between Washington and Moscow—as Kerry just demonstrated—but if this turn toward cordiality and cooperation holds, the consequences will refract like neutrons all over the planet.

And there’s nothing in any of the potential outcomes not to like.

As Kerry’s Tweet made plain, the Obama administration’s motivations in this demarche go to three immediate issues—two key to stability in the Middle East and one that has made the phrase “Cold War II” common currency in the past year and a half. Analysts of all stripes are unanimous: Washington has now concluded that there’s no resolving any of these questions without Moscow’s help.

That’s sound thinking except that it’s late by at least a year. One thing above all others prompted Obama and Kerry to get smart quick: These guys have a year and a half to leave a legacy of any value on the foreign side, and there’s not much other than failure in the hopper at the moment.

In Syria, the administration should have come to wiser conclusions in September 2013, when Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, saved Obama’s bacon by persuading Damascus to give up its chemical weapons inventories. Remember Obama’s foolish “red line” gambit? Lavrov threw the life jacket.

Kerry has said since mid-March that he wants new talks toward a political settlement in Syria, and Moscow is essential in making this happen. In this, the administration is straight out of Churchill: “You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing—after they’ve tried everything else.”

It’s something of the same on the pending nuclear deal with Iran—which was the No. 1 topic in Sochi. It was Lavrov who got Tehran to consider, if not yet agree, to ship its stockpile of enriched uranium to Russia and re-import supplies as needed for peaceful purposes. With two and a half months before the deadline for this deal, Washington needs all five negotiating partners—Russia above all, I’d say—to keep their oars in the water.

As to Ukraine, its economy deserves emergency status, even if you read next to nothing in the news reports. Absent the kind of debt write-down the European Union refuses to grant the Greeks, Lawrence Summers argued in the Financial Times over the weekend, default is now a serious option.

Equally, Kiev has done little to address the terms agreed in Minsk last February, which included new constitutional provisions granting rebellious eastern regions greater autonomy. With Europeans increasingly impatient and Russia not even close to stepping back, Kerry’s assistant secretary for European affairs, the controversial Victoria Nuland, was in Kiev two days after Kerry’s Sochi sit-down to confer on implementing the Minsk II agreement, of which Russia is a primary signatory.

Small wonder Kerry spent seven hours in back-to-back talks—three with Lavrov and four with President Putin. It was his first visit to Russia in two years, and these the objects of his attention—cooperation getting the Syria crisis under control, the final stitching on the Iran deal, and a settlement in Ukraine that—it’s finally clear in Washington—cannot be achieved other than via a negotiated compromise based on Minsk II.

It’s a full agenda, but stop there and you don’t get the half of it. Look at the other factors that sent Kerry to Putin’s Black Sea resort residence:

• It has been clear for months that Washington’s assertive stance toward Russia has been a source of increasing trans-Atlantic tensions. The very real risk of a lasting rift in U.S.-E.U. ties can now be alleviated.

• European leaders are due to meet next month to consider the status of the U.S.-led sanctions regime, and at least six nations are on the record saying they’ve had enough. When Kerry hinted after the Sochi sessions that it could be time to step back, he opened a path away from an embarrassing display of disunity, if not mutiny.

• E.U-Russian relations can begin to mend, too. This is especially key on the economic side. The virtual freeze of banking operations, a drastic slowdown in investment flows, and Russia’s countersanctions against E.U. exports have all hurt the eurozone just as it struggles to recover from seven years of financial and economic crisis.

• Tensions within the E.U., heated of late, also stand to abate. Greece has been the most evident problem in this regard, as the Syriza government draws closer to Moscow in plainly purposeful defiance of the Brussels consensus. But Greece, we should note, is not alone in harboring these sympathies.

Russian officials close to the Kremlin, to the perplexity of many Western analysts, have been advancing a worst-is-over line for several weeks. Putin added his voice when he met Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, just before the Sochi talks.

Indeed, sanctions may have backfired in certain respects. While Moscow announced a 1.9 percent drop in 1Q GDP Friday, it was less than expected, and Russia’s industry seems to have been energized. It reminds me of Rhodesia before it became Zimbabwe, when international sanctions forced a not-unimpressive manufacturing sector into being: If you can’t bring it in, make it.

The ruble, meantime, has come back so strongly this year that Moscow started buying $100 million to $200 million in foreign exchange daily last week to hold it down.

Those hours in Sochi, let’s say, were long due, wherever you sit and however you look at it. Now to watch what comes of them.