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.

The U.S. State Department is not talking with the RussianAmbassador about resolving the Ukraine war, but also not talking about much of anything else.

This is dangerous. Failure to communicate only increases distrust and enmity, heightening the risk of nuclear war.

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.

Click here to urge the State Department to start talking.

Here's our petition to the U.S. State Department, to which you can add your own words:

Speak with the Russian Ambassador.

Speak, if not about negotiating an end to war, then at least about topics unrelated to Ukraine, such as cooperation on other matters, including climate change.

Or speak about smaller, solvable issues.

Speak about freeing each others' prisoners.

Speak about allowing visas for cultural exchanges.

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.

Click here to sign.

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