Former U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation John J. Sullivan provided a look inside the mind and ‘agenda of aggression’ of Russian President Vladimir Putin during an appearance as part of the Johns Hopkins University MS in Intelligence Analysis program’s Inside Intelligence webinar series on November 21.
Drawing on his time as Ambassador (2019-22), Sullivan outlined the historical context on the country’s current warring with Ukraine and issued a stark warning about Putin’s desire to spread the conflicts westward. JHU’s MS in Intelligence Analysis Program Director Michael Ard moderated the candid conversation and the question-and-answer session that followed.
Sullivan recounted Putin’s rise to power from his time as a KGB foreign intelligence officer to director of the Federal Security Service, secretary of the Security Council of Russia, prime minister, and finally president. He noted that Putin’s driving motivation, and the reason for Russia’s current war with Ukraine, is his desire to restore the international border of 15 Soviet Republics, including Ukraine, and to reinstate what was once the Russian Empire. Secondarily, Sullivan attested, is Putin’s desire to rail against NATO and what he considers its “relentless expansion eastward” and to engage in a hybrid war with the West, including the United States.
To combat this, he said, the U.S. must do everything in its power to oppose Russian aggression and to educate Americans about the security threats and deadly serious issues that will continue to emerge from a Putin-led Russia, a country with not only the largest land mass in the world but also the largest global stockpile of nuclear weapons and a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
“Ukraine is the battlefield where this Russian warfare is being fought now, but it will not end there,” Sullivan said.
“Putin’s right hand is fighting Ukraine, but he is keeping his left hand free. I predict that he will ‘double down’ on this war in Ukraine, particularly now that they have engaged U.S. missiles, and this will further motivate his war with the West.”
Sullivan is a member of the Board of Directors of the U.S. Institute of Peace and a Congressional appointee on the bipartisan commission overseeing reform and modernization of the Department of State. Much of what he referenced in this event is included in his recently released book Midnight in Moscow: A Memoir from the Front Lines of Russia’s War Against the West.
- Listen now to Ambassador Sullivan’s full presentation.