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A Financial Times report says American lawyer Richard Conn helped carry a Biden administration message to Vladimir Putin through intermediaries in 2022, then took part in an unofficial peace initiative. The channel ended by early 2023, and the report leaves key details of the proposals and their collapse unresolved.
A Financial Times report has described how American lawyer Richard Conn helped carry a message from President Joe Biden’s administration to Vladimir Putin in 2022, using private intermediaries outside formal diplomatic channels. Conn and associates later tried to advance an unofficial Russia-Ukraine peace proposal, but that effort faltered and the backchannel had effectively ended by early 2023.
Conn, a corporate lawyer and investor who had worked in Russia since 1992, began pursuing the channel after a Russian businessman contacted him in March 2022. According to the FT account, the businessman feared that setbacks in the invasion, including Russia’s failure to capture Kyiv, could lead Putin to use tactical nuclear weapons. Conn turned to his network of American business contacts to reach the Kremlin without going through Russia’s Foreign Ministry.
Conn enlisted Bob Foresman, an investor with Russian business experience, and Eric Green, who oversaw Russia policy at the U.S. National Security Council. Foresman had a connection to Matthias Warnig, a longtime Putin associate who had led the Nord Stream gas pipeline projects. In October 2022, Conn passed Warnig a White House message, later quoted by the FT: “The US is not pursuing regime change. We’re not trying to destroy Russia. There is no existential threat. We’re trying to support international order and the UN. We want peace.”
The report says Warnig relayed Putin’s response to Conn and Foresman later that month. Warnig’s written account said Putin was open to negotiations but also “ready to fight” if he saw no alternative. The FT noted uncertainty over whether the words were Putin’s direct statement or Warnig’s interpretation. Conn and Foresman later helped carry proposals involving Ukraine, but the channel was effectively closed by official negotiators Yuri Ushakov and Green by early 2023, according to the report.
The Limits of a Private Channel
The episode illustrates how private contacts can provide a route for messages when formal relations are strained, particularly during a war accompanied by fears of nuclear escalation. Conn’s contacts offered a way to communicate with Putin outside the usual diplomatic structures, but the account does not establish that the channel changed either government’s policy or produced an agreement.
The later peace effort also shows the limits of unofficial mediation. The proposals reportedly involved major territorial questions, including Crimea and Russian-occupied parts of Donbas. Those issues bear directly on Ukraine’s sovereignty and the terms of any settlement. The reported breakdown underscores that transmitting ideas is not the same as securing consent from the governments and parties whose decisions would be required.
The history matters now because it adds detail to the record of U.S.-Russia communication during the first year of the full-scale invasion. The FT account describes Conn’s effort as one channel among several, not a replacement for official contacts. It also reports that later U.S. attempts to negotiate an end to the war involved other people and had not succeeded at the time covered.
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From Nuclear Fears to Peace Proposals
The channel began as concern about escalation, not as a formal negotiation. After Conn’s March 2022 conversation with the unnamed businessman, Conn proposed to Green that a direct message be sent to Putin. The report says Conn suspected that Russian officials might be insulating the president from outside information, though that was Conn’s assessment rather than an independently established fact.
Conn did not reach Putin’s circle until September 2022, after earlier official talks in Istanbul had failed and Russian forces had withdrawn from the outskirts of Kyiv. On October 4, Conn and Foresman met Warnig in Zurich; Conn subsequently passed along the White House message in Germany. Warnig delivered his account of Putin’s response at Frankfurt Airport on October 26. The next day, Putin spoke publicly at the Valdai Discussion Club and said nuclear weapons had “no political or military sense” in the context of a possible Ukrainian “dirty bomb.” Conn and Foresman viewed the public remarks as evidence their outreach had helped ease the threat, but the FT also reported that Jake Sullivan and Yuri Ushakov were discussing the issue through official channels around the same time.
Encouraged by the exchanges, Conn and Foresman sought to move beyond messaging and facilitate proposals between Russia and Ukraine. They involved businessman Michael Calvey to connect Conn with Ukrainian producer Alexander Rodnyansky, who knew President Volodymyr Zelensky. The FT says Warnig and Rodnyansky carried proposals to the two leaders. The available source material describes some territorial terms but does not provide a complete account of the initiative or its subsequent stages.
“Using nuclear weapons made “no political or military sense” for Russia.”
— Vladimir Putin, speaking at the Valdai Discussion Club on October 27, 2022
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What the Report Leaves Open
The account does not establish that Conn’s channel caused Putin’s public remarks on nuclear weapons to change. The FT reported that official discussions between Sullivan and Ushakov were also taking place, so the effect of the private outreach cannot be separated from other contacts. The precise authorship and wording of Warnig’s reported quotation of Putin are also unclear.
The source material provides only part of the peace proposals and does not detail every response from the Russian or Ukrainian leadership, the full sequence of negotiations, or the specific reason the initiative collapsed. It says Ushakov and Green had effectively ended Conn’s channel by early 2023, but does not explain exactly how that decision was communicated or whether either government considered the proposals formally.
The report also does not establish whether the private exchanges produced any lasting commitments. The broader diplomatic efforts that followed involved different participants, and the account says those attempts had not achieved a peaceful end to the war.
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Further Records Could Clarify the Talks
The published account is a retrospective description of events from 2022 and early 2023, rather than notice of a new negotiation underway. No next meeting or renewed role for Conn is identified in the supplied material. Further reporting or statements from the people involved could clarify the full content of the proposals, how each side responded, and why the channel ended.
For now, the reported exchanges should be understood as one unofficial effort alongside government-to-government contacts. Any assessment of their impact would require more evidence about what was communicated, how the leaders received it, and whether it influenced decisions. The article does not indicate that the initiative is being revived.
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Key Questions
Who is Richard Conn?
Richard Conn is an American corporate lawyer and investor who began working in Russia in 1992, when he founded the Moscow office of Latham & Watkins. The FT report says he used longstanding business contacts to help establish the backchannel.
How did the channel reach Putin?
Conn worked with investor Bob Foresman, who had a connection to Matthias Warnig, a longtime Putin associate. Conn also worked with Eric Green, the Biden-era National Security Council official overseeing Russia policy. The reported exchanges passed through these intermediaries rather than a formal diplomatic meeting with Putin.
What message did the White House send?
The message, quoted by the FT, said the United States was not seeking regime change or to destroy Russia, and that it wanted to support international order and peace. Conn passed it to Warnig in October 2022 for delivery to Putin.
What did the unofficial peace proposal involve?
The source material says the proposal called for Russia to withdraw from most of the regions Putin had recently annexed, with a line based on Crimea’s boundaries and areas of Donbas occupied before 2022. It also says Ukraine would recognize Russian control over Crimea and provide free passage along a route, but the supplied account cuts off before fully describing the terms. The proposal was not presented as an accepted agreement.
Why did the backchannel end?
The report says official negotiators Yuri Ushakov and Eric Green had effectively brought Conn’s channel to an end by early 2023. The supplied material does not give a full explanation of why they did so or describe every step in the channel’s closure.
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