“Easing punitive measures on the Russian government when they haven’t changed their behavior will only embolden Russia," Samantha Power said. | Getty U.N. Ambassador Power warns Trump against cozying up to Russia

United Nations Ambassador Samantha Power on Tuesday warned President-elect Donald Trump against attempting a reset with Russia.

“Yes, the Obama administration tried this approach in our first term. But 2017 is not 2009,” Power said Tuesday during an address at the Atlantic Council.


Indeed, Dimitri Medvedev was president of Russia in 2009, not Vladimir Putin, Russia’s current authoritarian leader. And the U.S., Power said, found common ground with Moscow back then on issues including counterterrorism, arms control and the war in Afghanistan.

“More important, in 2009, Russia was not occupying Crimea, fueling an ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine, and bombing hospitals and first responders in Syria,” Power said. “Nor, most importantly, had Russia interfered directly in a U.S. election.”

In a 40-minute address, Power sent a series of messages to the incoming administration, encouraging Trump without mentioning him by name to support the intelligence community he will soon take over, support the nation’s NATO allies and maintain President Barack Obama’s retaliatory sanctions against the Kremlin.

While it’s healthy for parties to debate key issues, Power stressed that what isn’t healthy “is for a party or its leaders to cast doubt on a unanimous, well-documented assessment of our intelligence community that a foreign government is seeking to harm our country,” implicitly rebuking Trump for his months-long rejection of U.S. intelligence.

Power called on the nation to do a better job of informing its citizens against the dire threat of the Russia government, insisting that “unity is crucial.” She cited “an alarmingly high proportion” — 37 percent — of Republicans who view Putin favorably, compared to just 10 percent of Republicans who were surveyed in July 2014.

“I know some have said that this focus on Russia is simply the party that lost the recent presidential election being ‘sore losers,’” she said, likely alluding to the president-elect, “but it should worry every American that a foreign government interfered in our democratic process. It’s not about the leader we chose — it’s about who gets to choose that leader. That privilege should belong only to Americans.”

Power also said the U.S. must maintain its support of its NATO allies, which she, like Trump, called on to pay their fair share. And she said the U.S. shouldn’t ease its sanctions against Russia, as Trump may do once he takes office.

“Easing punitive measures on the Russian government when they haven’t changed their behavior will only embolden Russia — sending the message that the best way to gain international acceptance of its destabilizing actions is simply to wait us out,” she warned. “And that will not only encourage more dangerous actions by Russia, but also by other rule-breakers like Iran and North Korea, which are constantly testing how far they can move the line without triggering a response.”

Throughout her remarks, Power outlined the relationship between the U.S. and Russia. She highlighted issues on which both nations have worked together — negotiating a resolution to get chemical weapons out of Syria, for instance, and imposing sanctions on Iran for its nuclear program — but insisted that the Kremlin is a “major threat.”

“Anyone who has seen my debates in the U.N. Security Council with Russia knows that I and my government have long had serious concerns about its government’s aggressive and destabilizing actions,” she said.

Power said the Russian government, at Putin’s direction, “is taking steps that are weakening the rules-based order” on which the international community operates.

“Our values, our security, our prosperity, and our very way of life are tied to this order,” she continued. “And we — and by we, I mean the United States and our closest partners — must come together to prevent Russia from succeeding.”

Russia has tried to sow doubt and division in democracies, attempting to drive a wedge between the U.S. and its allies, Power said, pointing specifically to Germany, Montenegro and even America as examples.

While Russian hackers broadly tried to delegitimize Germany’s democratic process, Power noted their more direct campaign in Montenegro, where Russians sought to “violently disrupt the country’s elections, topple the government, install a new administration loyal to Moscow and perhaps even assassinate the prime minister.”

In the U.S., she added, Russia sought to undermine faith in the nation’s democratic process and boost one candidate while denigrating the other.

“At first glance these interventions by Russia in different parts of the world can appear unrelated. That is because the common thread running through them cannot be found in anything that Russia is for — but rather in what Russia is against. Not in the rules it follows, but in the ones it breaks.”

The path forward that Power shared includes a bipartisan effort to determine the full extent of Russia’s cyberattacks during the U.S. election and continued engagement with the Russian people, even as the Russian government has limited the ways the U.S. can communicate with Russia's citizens.

“We must be careful to distinguish between the Russian government and the Russian people,” she said. “We cannot let America’s relationship with a nation of more than 140 million people … be defined solely by the nefarious actions of a tiny subset in their government.”