DAVID SWANSON, david@worldbeyondwar.org, @WorldBeyondWar
    Swanson is executive director of World Beyond War, which just launched a campaign asking the State Department to talk to the Russian ambassador in Washington, D.C.

The group states: “The U.S. State Department is not talking with the Russian Ambassador to the United States … about resolving the Ukraine war, or about much of anything else.

“Politico calls the Russian Ambassador to the United States ‘Lonely Anatoly‘ because his job is to talk with the U.S. government, but the U.S. government won’t talk with him.
“This is dangerous. Failure to communicate only increases distrust and enmity, heightening the risk of nuclear war.

The group expands: “Four blocks from the White House sits the Russian Ambassador’s house, the former Soviet Embassy where then-Attorney General Robert Kennedy met with Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin to de-escalate the Cuban Missile Crisis by talking. Today, another Russian Ambassador, Anatoly Antonov, is there, but the U.S. State Department doesn’t speak with him. …

“Speak about allowing the International Atomic Energy Agency to protect the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine.

“Speak about reactivating and extending the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty.

“Speak about steps that can begin to build trust.

“Speak, ideally, about a compromise that might end the killing before it ends all life on Earth.”