Corrects para 25 in order to correct typographical errors

Jonathan Landay and Arshad Muhammad

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – Russia’s invasion in Ukraine has made John Sullivan’s difficult job as U.S. envoy for Moscow more challenging as he tries to deal with Russia’s nuclear saberrattling threats and maintain good relations with Moscow while his embassy is running on one-tenth of the usual staff.

Sullivan recalled that Jan. 2020 was a terrible year. “It’s gotten worse.”

Although he claimed he can do both, he has not been forced to use embassy bathrooms or clean floors due to severe staff reductions by Russia’s government.

This week the genial grandson and great-grandson of Irish immigrants talked about Washington’s man in Moscow, five weeks into a war where U.S.-supplied weapons are killing troops from his country and economic sanctions by the United States are crippling Russia’s economies.

He said that his interactions with Russian officials in the foreign ministry have not been “personally insulting or hostile” and there has been no serious backlash against them.

He said that the security situation in this country is not significantly different than it was six months ago or a month ago. This was via video calling from an office with a sparse view of an embassies courtyard that had been drenched in fresh snow. But that can change at any time, depending on the host government.

John Herbst, a former U.S. envoy for Ukraine at the Atlantic Council think-tank, stated that Sullivan has to deal with new circumstances. “We’re in hostile relations with Moscow.”

U.S.-Russian ties had already been at their post-Cold War worst when Donald Trump tapped Sullivan as the U.S.’s most challenging job in diplomacy. This was a position previously held only by greats like John Quincy Adams or George Kennan.

Moscow ordered that the U.S. consulate at St. Petersburg be closed in March 2018 after the rivals engaged in expulsions and a diplomatic Visa feud. He arrived at the Russian consulates in Vladivostok, Yekaterinburg. They closed the latter in March 2018, leaving only the U.S. embassy in Russia.

However, its workforce has decreased from around 1,200 to 130 in 2017, about half of which are Marines or other security guards.

Both sides were also at odds on issues such as Syria’s civil conflict and Kremlin’s seizing of Crimea, backing separatists from Ukraine’s East to U.S. sanctioning Russia’s attempts to influence the 2016 presidential election to Trump.

Trump’s Democratic successor Joe Biden chose to retain Sullivan. Sullivan is an established Republican lawyer and does not speak Russian. However, his affection for Russia stemmed from his childhood love of Soviet hockey.

After Russia summoned its envoy to Moscow, Washington called Sullivan back for consultations in April 2021.

The Russian government implemented a President Vladimir Putin’s directive in May 2021 and ordered that scores of Russian workers who were performing critical tasks be fired by the embassy. This halted all processing for visas that were not “life-or-death” in Russia.

When Sullivan and Russia’s ambassador to Washington returned in June to their respective posts, hopes rose that tensions might ease. Biden and Putin also met in Geneva in the same month.

However, relations deteriorated. Russia gathered troops at Ukraine’s border and demanded security guarantees that Washington and NATO allies would not accept. On February 24, Russia invaded neighboring countries.

“We are in the Mariana Trench so far as diplomatic relations goes,” Sullivan stated, referring Earth’s deepest ocean abyss.

Russia claims it’s conducting a special operation to “denazify” and demilitarize Ukraine. It has claimed that the war has resulted in thousands of deaths and millions being displaced.

Sullivan’s tasks range from the ominous, to the routine.

Putin placed his nuclear force on alert just days after his invasion. He cited NATO leaders’ aggressive statements and economic sanctions against Moscow.

U.S. officials claim they worry about Russian officials’ veiled threats to nuclear war. They also make comparisons to 1962 Cuban missile crisis.

Sullivan claimed that he took seriously a threat made by the Russian leadership to cut diplomatic ties.

The United States doesn’t want its embassy to be closed here. The President Biden doesn’t want me to be recalled as Ambassador. He said that it was not something we could control.

CROWBAR TO PRY MOUT

Russia has expelled Sullivan’s deputy in February, and now 37 additional U.S. personnel must also leave the country by July. One U.S. official spoke on condition of anonymity to say that this would place the Embassy in “caretaker” status, which was secured by a small contingent.

According to the U.S. official, diplomats could soon use stairs more often than before. If the two last electricians leave the Embassy, it will be dangerous for the sprinkler system.

Washington tensions increased and Washington was receiving more overnight calls, prompting Sullivan to relocate from Spaso House (the elegant ambassadorial home), in February. It is a short drive from the chancery’s secure communications facility.

The more humble Townhouse One is where he and his deputy lived, before he was expelled. It’s a short walk from the Chancery.

Sullivan stated that he would not be able to continue his primary task of advocating for the detained Americans if diplomatic ties are severed.

Brittney Griner, a basketball player, is among them. Former Marines Trevor Reed who is holding a second hunger strike and Paul Whelan are also included.

“I have told my friends back home that they will need to get me out with a crowbar because I won’t leave until either they throw me out, or until the president says, ‘Look! You gotta go home.

Sullivan stated that he would like to be “be there and at a minimal advocate for those Americans we’d abandon iron bars.”

(This story is rewritten in order to correct paragraph 25, which was a typographical error.