Though he has been called “Washington’s least popular man” in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine, Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Anatoly Antonov had a big-name dining companion for lunch Thursday at Cafe Milano in Georgetown: former U.S. envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad. The two were hosted by Dimitri Simes, president and CEO of the Center for the National Interest.
A POLITICO reporter was at a neighboring table, overheard much of the conversation, and took notes on what was said.
The Russian ambassador agreed when Khalilzad said “we need an agreement” to end the war between Ukraine and Russia. When discussing the prospect of a peace deal, Antonov asked Khalilzad, “What would [the U.S.] like us to give up?” Khalilzad suggested that Antonov have dinner with the Ukrainian ambassador. In an apparent reference to Russia’s false claims that neo-Nazis are running Ukraine, Antonov asked Khalilzad: "You have a lot of Jewish guys in the United States. Why are they so tolerant of what’s happening in Kyiv?”
Antonov expressed befuddlement over Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and said he doesn’t “understand [Zelenskyy’s] vision for the future of Ukraine.”
When discussing U.S.-Russia relations, Antonov complained “that we don’t get any respect” from Washington, adding that Russia “need[s] respect” and “would like [the U.S.] to respect” it. Asked what might lead to the normalization of relations with the U.S., Antonov told Khalilzad, “I cannot answer your question,” but later said that Russia needed “security guarantees.”
In his conversation with Khalilzad and Simes, Antonov bemoaned the lack of dialogue and communication between the U.S. and Russia, comparing it unfavorably to the Cuban missile crisis, during which the U.S. and Soviet Union continued to talk. Near the end of the lunch, Antonov said: “Zal, I would like to use your contacts and your contacts in this administration,” and Khalilzad discussed the need for a “track two” in communications between the U.S and Russia.
At the lunch, Simes discussed a business idea of his: starting a new TV channel in Moscow, which Khalilzad said could be “very lucrative.” “Don’t forget my request to be junior partner,” Antonov joked. It is not clear how serious Simes is about his idea but this would not be his first foray in television in Russia. In 2018, to the surprise of some of his think tank’s employees, Simes started as a co-host of a prime-time show called “The Big Game” on a channel that the Russian government is a majority owner of.
Simes, the son of Russian human rights lawyers, drew previous public attention when he was mentioned more than 100 times in the Robert Mueller investigation into former President Donald Trump’s links to Russia. Mueller found that in June 2016, Simes sent a memo to then-Sen. Jeff Sessions, who was leading Trump’s foreign policy team, offering several policy recommendations, including “a new beginning with Moscow.” In August of that year, he sent Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner a “Russia policy memo.”
When Trump was running for president in 2016, Simes’ think tank hosted the candidate’s first foreign policy address that April. At the event, Sergey Kislyak, who was then the Russian ambassador, briefly met Sessions, who later became Trump’s attorney general.
The Mueller report also said that Simes told Kushner that the Russian government might have dirt on the Clintons. Two sources told POLITICO in 2019 that the information he was referring to was rumors within the U.S. intelligence community that Russia had intercepted former President Bill Clinton’s sexually explicit phone calls with Monica Lewinsky.
At the time, Simes brushed off his appearances in the Mueller report, telling The Washington Post he had been vindicated and that the report showed he had done nothing wrong.
After lunch, Antonov declined a request for a brief interview.
The Russian Embassy did not respond to a request for comment and Khalilzad declined to comment. Simes disputed elements of the reporting but did not give specifics when asked repeatedly.
“It is clear to me that you did not even understand what the conversation was all about. Indeed, you were not close enough to hear the conversation sufficiently well to be able to report it objectively,” Simes said in a text message.
