The Clinton-Yeltsin Moscow Summit, January 1994

This cover memo from the national security adviser for Clinton’s briefing book on the Moscow Summit highlights the major differences from the two previous Clinton-Yeltsin meetings at Vancouver and Tokyo in 1993. The challenge “at this critical turning point,” according to Lake, will be to reaffirm “a close U.S.-Russia partnership built on a Russian commitment to democratic political and market reform.” The parliamentary elections in December—a shocking loss for the reformers—revealed that Russia was “deeply divided over the pace and direction of economic reform, the role and rights of Russia in the ‘Near Abroad,’” and how fast to “integrate with the West” at all.

Lake warns Clinton that Russian reform faces the criticism that “average Russians” are “worse off than when the USSR collapsed two years ago.” So the U.S. would have a twofold message both encouraging Yeltsin to continue privatization and macro reform and understanding the need for “greater targeted social investments,” even though the U.S. cannot design or fully fund those—“that is clearly Russia’s job.”

On the hopeful side, the Moscow trip is taking place in the middle of an intensive three-way diplomatic process with Ukraine, working out compensation from Russia for the rapidly wasting nuclear warheads left over in Ukraine from the Soviet Union—all targeted on the U.S. but reaching the end of their working lives. Lake tells Clinton that a successful resolution here “would be the crowning achievement of the summit, a victory for your nonproliferation policy” and “a strong public symbol of Russia’s willingness to work fairly with its most important neighbor.”

This 12-page “eyes only” memo to the Secretary of State is the first in a long series of candid briefing memos written by Strobe Talbott in his role as the number two official in the State Department. Written just four days after Talbott had been formally nominated to be Deputy Secretary, the memo leaves a wide margin for Christopher’s reactions, and asks if he wants more such frank missives. The Secretary scribbles “yes” on the first page and adds many more comments on other pages. Talbott displays the lively writing style developed in his previous two-decade tenure at TIME magazine, and captures Christopher’s attention with colorful details on personalities, on the administration’s critics and how to disarm them, on the internal policy conflicts, and with constructive suggestions for ways forward. While recognizing that the new deputy secretary role would involve many more responsibilities than just U.S.-Russia policy, Talbott makes sure to impress upon Christopher that Clinton himself wanted Talbott’s continuing close engagement on Russia, especially for Clinton-Yeltsin meetings such as the Moscow summit that month.

In this memo to the national security adviser on the eve of Clinton’s visit to Moscow, Talbott previews some of the most important issues the Russia side wants to raise during the summit—the future security arrangements in Europe. Talbott writes quite dismissively and negatively about a new European security initiative that Russian Foreign Minister Andrey Kozyrev presented in a German newspaper, which he called the “Partnership for United Europe.” The plan would subordinate NATO to the CSCE structures and strengthen the Russian role in building a new integrated Europe. Although the Clinton team stated publicly that a fully integrated Europe without new dividing lines was their goal, Talbott dismisses Kozyrev’s thoughts on Russian desire to “be the architect […] along with the U.S. of a completely new European security order,” saying that “it sticks in their craw that NATO appears poised to dictate the terms of the new order.”

Talbott’s early relationship with Kozyrev had been cordial and productive, but now his view of Kozyrev has changed completely. He sees the Russian foreign minister moving in a more nationalist direction partly as a result of the December elections and his own political interests. Talbott concludes that “Kozyrev has become part of the problem rather than part of the solution” and suspects that he was an unhelpful influence on Yeltsin during the last weeks of the trilateral process. He shares with Lake the talking points for Secretary Christopher’s upcoming meeting with Kozyrev where they were scheduled to discuss the Partnership for Peace and European security.

Strobe Talbott’s backstage version of this conversation, published in 2002, gave a colorful, conflict-ridden account of the Clinton stopover in Kyiv on the way to Moscow. But that version is not supported by the actual transcript, only declassified in 2018. According to Talbott, “Clinton and Christopher, neither of whom was in the habit of roughing up a head of state, decided to make an exception. They told Kravchuk in the bluntest of terms that if he backed out of the deal that had already been made it would be a major setback for Ukraine’s relations with both Russia and the U.S.” Kravchuk was “visibly shaken” in Talbott’s version.

The transcript (Talbott was not actually in the room, according to the list of participants on the memcon) shows far more diplomatic language, with Clinton praising Kravchuk’s “enormous vision and courage” and promising “to do everything I can for the people of Ukraine and for you, sir.” Clinton points to the $175 million in Nunn-Lugar funds coming to underwrite the nuclear dismantling and offers to persuade the G-7 and the IMF to develop ways to pay for energy imports (Ukraine’s were all from Russia and already indebted).

Kravchuk responds gratefully: “Certainly we should start our broader cooperation so that I can tell our people that after I took this position on the nuclear question, there was a change in attitude toward assistance to our country. That would help. When we have stabilization for our currency and private investment for Ukraine, then everyone will understand that the agreements signed by the three Presidents were the only possible step.” The only apparent moment of U.S. pressure comes when Christopher says the signing in Moscow will be “an historic event and a celebration. It will not be a negotiating session.” The conversation concludes with interesting commentary by Kravchuk on Russia to the effect that Yeltsin understands, “but there is no eternal president and we worry about expansion.”

While Yeltsin is eager to greet Bill Clinton in the Kremlin, the long-awaited state visit is happening in less-than-ideal circumstances. The December Duma elections brought a backlash against the democratic forces due to the harshness of economic reform and Yeltsin’s heavy-handed approach to the constitutional crisis. Clinton’s planned speech to the newly elected parliament had to be scrapped. Yeltsin starts the meeting talking about the composition of the new Duma saying that he does not “share the concern that is felt abroad about Zhirinovskiy.” Yeltsin gives a correct diagnosis that the Zhirinovsky vote was a response to economic hardship, that the people “didn’t vote for taking back Alaska, Ukraine and Crimea or for the fascism that he embodies but rather because they are unhappy.”

In response, and clearly in view of the future presidential election in Russia, Clinton gives his counterpart some sound political advice on how to work with the opponents and how to make his political program more appealing to people. He says that “the reformers’ campaign showed a recklessness,” comparing it to some U.S. Democrats. Clinton advises Yeltsin to come back to the image of the man on the tank and focus more on values, not programs. He offers Yeltsin advice from his political experts, suggesting he should send Gaidar or his other associates to Washington for a “quiet meeting,” which Yeltsin enthusiastically accepts.

Turning to economic reform, Yeltsin complains about the slow pace of G-7 and IMF assistance and the lack of U.S. investment in Russia and points to the continued existence of the Jackson-Vanik amendment. He says Russia does not “want aid since that can lead to an anti-Western flair-up.” He asks for investment, help in rescheduling of foreign debt, and to redirect 10% of the Nunn-Lugar program funding to Russian research institutes. Clinton expresses his continued support for the reform but names three issues that prevent him from moving more decisively in his Russia agenda— Russia’s arms sales to Iran, slowness in joining the Partnership for Peace, and lack of agreement on the withdrawal of Russian troops from the Baltic states.

This document is a placeholder for the first big economic discussion of the summit, the “First Expanded Bilateral” that took place on the morning of January 13, 1994. The highly professional staff at the Clinton Presidential Library have to date been unable to locate a transcript (memcon) of this meeting and speculate that perhaps one was not written up afterwards, perhaps due to a division of labor between the National Security Council staff, who would normally have taken the notes, and the Treasury Department personnel, who were also in attendance and were personally invested in the Yeltsin economic reform program.

Beforehand, the NSC and Treasury staff prepared Clinton for the meeting with this revealing briefing memo and talking points. The memo says, “The Parliamentary elections were a wake-up call generally, but specifically the Russian people view the government’s two-year attempt to begin a historic economic transition from command economics to a ‘Russian’ market economy as harsh and directly responsible for the decline in living standards during this period. Russia’s economic reforms have not succeeded on at least two fronts. They haven’t established a social safety net for the average Russian and have also not reduced subsidies to large state enterprises.”

Clinton’s main concern was to insist on continuing “bold economic reforms” while acknowledging “our understanding” of “greater emphasis on social welfare programs.” At the top of Clinton’s talking points was the affirmation “that reform program and team will stay in place.” That was not to be. In fact, during the summit the Americans learned that the leading reformers, Yegor Gaidar and Boris Fyodorov, were being fired by Yeltsin. Perhaps the Americans shouldn’t have been so surprised. Even Strobe Talbott had commented in December that the U.S. goal now after the elections was to promote “less shock and more therapy.” The remark “managed to infuriate both Russian liberals and my colleagues at Treasury,” Talbott later wrote; “it sounded to both groups that I too was blaming Gaidar and Fyodorov for the rise of Zhirinovsky and undercutting our own government’s insistence on rapid, disciplined structural reform and strict conditionality for IMF lending.”[6] Indeed.

President Clinton meets with the Russian Orthodox Patriarch in the hospital as part of the plan to widen his circle of Russian interlocutors and to appeal to the Russian believers. Clinton’s mother has just passed, and the Patriarch offers a prayer for her. Aleksiy expresses his church’s support for democratic reform in Russia and his concern about the results of the recent parliamentary elections. He delicately hints about the proliferation of various proselytizing preachers from the West, who flooded Russia in the early 1990s, which the official Orthodox church saw as a competing influence on Russians’ souls. Clinton responds that he is a Baptist himself (a denomination previously considered a sect in the USSR) and that he appreciates the religious liberty in Russia. He reminisces about his visit to the Novodevichy Monastery 24 years ago and his visit to St. Basil’s Cathedral earlier in the day. The U.S. president’s remarks are very brief but empathetic and respectful of Russian spirituality. It’s worth noting that the second Church official in attendance, Metropolitan Kirill, went on to become the Patriarch himself, blessing the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The dinner at Yeltsin’s official dacha in Novo-Ogarevo features moose lips in wine sauce, Bill Clinton playing saxophone, and a most lavish 24-course dinner with lots of toasts. It was designed as a showcase of the U.S.-Russian partnership and a display of warm personal relationship between the two presidents. The cable drafted by Ambassador Pickering misdates the dinner, which took place on the evening of January 13. Among the many issues covered, most important were the Russian role in European security, the Partnership for Peace and the future expansion of NATO, and Russian policies in the near abroad.

Yeltsin reflects on the challenges of working with the new parliament and the changes he was planning to make in his cabinet. Clinton comes to the dinner straight from the Spaso House reception where he met with representatives of many Russian political parties and movements, most of whom were critical of Yeltsin’s policies. Yeltsin gives his counterpart a somewhat optimistic review of his prospects of working productively with the new parliament but mentions that Yegor Gaidar would have to step down and work in the Duma.

Turning to the security agenda, Yeltsin tells Clinton that his information about arms sales to Iran is incorrect and asks him if sanctions on Iraq could be eased so that Russia could collect some of the debt that Iraq still owed it. Clinton noted that if Iraq was permitted to sell oil, the falling oil prices would harm Russian interests. Defense Minister Grachev talks about military-to-military relations, his recent meetings with U.S. Defense Secretary Les Aspin, and his first call on the Partnership for Peace hotline on January 5, 1995. He wants to meet with the new U.S. Defense Secretary as soon as possible (retired Admiral Bobby Inman had been nominated by Clinton to succeed Aspin but later withdrew) and to brief the Secretary General of NATO on the new Russian military doctrine. Grachev is very pleased with the close cooperation with the U.S. military and even invites Clinton and Yeltsin to personally observe a planned bilateral military exercise in July 1994.

One of most important issues for the U.S. team, according to the scene-setter, is the deployment of Russian peace-keeping forces in the near abroad. This issue is painful for Yeltsin, who is trying to be a force for good in the former Soviet space. The Russian president talks about Russia’s constructive actions in Moldova and Georgia and his desire to stop bloodshed. He says that “allegations of imperial aspirations are harming us and are not correct.”

Yeltsin wants to speak about his favorite subject—U.S.-Russian partnership, and Russia’s relationship with NATO. In his memoir, Kozyrev wrote that Yeltsin was shocked by Clinton’s “not whether but when” statement in Prague about future NATO expansion, and even felt betrayed by Clinton. Here, however, Yeltsin says to Clinton “we certainly agree with you on NATO” but also states that “Russia has to be the first country to join NATO,” followed by other states from Central and Eastern Europe. He even proposes “a kind of cartel of the U.S., Russia and Europeans to help to ensure and improve world security.” Clinton’s response is very careful, mentioning Russian’s sense of greatness but not engaging on the idea of a cartel or Russia’s membership in NATO.

The Russian president expresses his deep appreciation of Clinton: “You come to Russia not to confront us, but with the affection and love of our people and with a sense of support for Russia.” In response, Clinton talks about their “relationship of trust and confidence” and the unique chance it creates if Russia stays the course: “we could guarantee the countries of Europe a century of peace or more.” Such were the high hopes of the 1990s.

This very brief (one might even say rushed) meeting between presidents Clinton, Kravchuk and Yeltsin is the formal event to present the “crowning achievement” of the summit—the Trilateral Statement on withdrawal of nuclear weapons from Ukraine. This meeting was preceded by months of work by diplomats from all three countries and was still in question as Clinton was flying to Europe. Yeltsin summarizes the details of the statement, emphasizing that “Russia and the U.S. will give [Ukraine] full guarantees of security.” Kravchuk confirms that “there is no alternative to nuclear disarmament” and pledges full cooperation with the trilateral process. Clinton commends Russia and Ukraine on their cooperation and praises the Trilateral Statement that “this agreement makes the world safer and each of our countries more secure.” Relieved that the agreement was finally in hand, he suggests that everybody has already said enough and they “should go sign the agreement.” Yeltsin suggests they exchange the letters spelling out each side’s commitments first.

In his scene setter (Document 1) Tony Lake calls the prospective signing of the Trilateral Statement “the crowning achievement of the summit.” The U.S. team doubted that they would be able to sign it with the agreed wording even as they arrived in Moscow. Both the Ukrainians and the Russians were trying to reopen the text, but Clinton pushed back on both.[7] The historic agreement achieves the goal of Ukrainian nuclear disarmament as well as settling the issue of Russia’s payment for the uranium contained in the nuclear warheads that would be moved to Russia for dismantlement. Ukraine commits to eliminating all nuclear weapons on its territory by dismantling them and sending the warheads to Russia. Russia commits to providing Ukraine with fuel rods for civilian nuclear power plants using downgraded uranium from the warheads. The United States commits to providing assistance for dismantlement of nuclear weapons under the Nunn-Lugar Program. Ukraine is to get at least $175 million of this assistance. All three signators commit to treating each other as full and equal partners. The Annex specifies the security assurances that Russia and the United States gave Ukraine (these were later formalized in the Budapest Memorandum in December 1994). However, the assurances did not go beyond the commitments already contained in the text of the Helsinki Final Act and the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Russia violated its commitments in 2014 with the annexation of Crimea and again with the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

After the Trilateral Statement is signed, the entire Russian and U.S. security teams meet face to face to discuss dozens of issues on their agenda. Clinton starts by noting that the HEU agreement first discussed in Vancouver, under which the United Stated would purchase the uranium from nuclear warheads dismantled in Russia, is being signed later in the day. After mentioning START I, the U.S. president moves quickly to raise a very sensitive issue—biological weapons remaining from the Soviet program. His talking points from Anthony Lake instruct him to link the issue to Nunn-Lugar certification if Russia does not resolve bio concerns. Clinton reminds Yeltsin of his personal commitment to end the program and notes that U.S. experts believe that illegal work was still happening. Yeltsin and Defense Minister both deny that anything illegal is going on and “shake [their] head[s] vigorously.”

In the first part of the conversation, Yeltsin seems not fully engaged, saying almost nothing, stating that Russia has ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention (it had not) and sounding surprised when Clinton mentions Russian arms sales to Iran, Libya and North Korea. However, when he takes the floor, he is quite eloquent but prefers to talk about grand ideas and designs rather than specific issues. His favorite subject is how the U.S.-Russian partnership would transform the world, creating a “new system of international relations.” He suggests they should “propose an initiative to reshape world institutions such as the United Nations and the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe.” He sees a need to formulate an official document formalizing the U.S.-Russian partnership, sounding like a partnership between two superpowers (even while Russia, by 1994, was just a shadow of the former USSR). While Yeltsin wants to reshape the world and build new structures, the U.S. side is concerned about preserving and expanding its own main security structure—NATO. Clinton wants to be very careful about how they describe the partnership, so that other countries “don’t think we are dividing Europe.” Clinton expresses his commitment to a fully integrated Europe “for the first time in history” but does not engage with Yeltsin on his grand reformist designs.

The meeting is very productive in terms of achieving specific understandings on ABM, the need to ratify START II, Soviet troops in the Baltics and elimination of chemical weapons. Russian Defense Minister Pavel Grachev carries most of the arms-control and non-proliferation discussions for the Russian side.

This last conversation was not planned, but Clinton requested it after he learned that Yeltsin was about to let go of some of his most committed reformers led by Yegor Gaidar, who would resign the day after the U.S. delegation left Moscow. Clinton (who does all the talking here) tells Yeltsin that he now understands better that Russian people were hurt by the reform, that “most ordinary citizens and some well-educated ones did not feel connected to what Yeltsin was doing,” and that they “did not feel that their lives had improved.” Still, he encouraged Yeltsin to try to keep the reformist team, among other things, because Clinton’s “credibility was connected to President Yeltsin’s indication that he would continue the reforms, which were linked to a specific team of people.” Departure of those people would hurt Clinton’s ability to deliver on promises of IMF credits and debt relief. Yeltsin replies only that “President Clinton saw the situation, and these difficulties did exist.”