Escalation watch › Channels & arms control › D01

Channel health: military-to-military and crisis communication

D01 · Both · checked 2026-11-09 · reviewed Every run · priority

Kirill Dmitriev, Putin's special representative and head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund who handles the economic track with Washington, has pointed to the NATO-RUSSIA COUNCIL - created after the Cold War and suspended in 2014 - as a model for a future…

Escalation signal

LOWERING TO 0 RECONSIDERED ON 23 OCTOBER 2026 AND REJECTED, BY A NARROWER MARGIN THAN BEFORE. The case for 0 is the strongest it has been: the emergency line has been used rather than merely maintained, a standing military channel runs from the Supreme Allied Commander to the Russian chief of general staff, a written exchange on nuclear signalling was answered within days, intelligence services are in regular contact over prisoner releases, foreign-minister contact with Berlin has resumed and a trilateral negotiating format is scheduled. What holds it at 1 is that 0 describes the pre-2022 architecture, not merely the absence of a crisis: the NATO-Russia Council has not met since 12 January 2022, there are no routine working-level military contacts, and Vienna Document inspections and risk-reduction mechanisms remain suspended. Bilateral lines at the top are not an institution. RISING (worse): hotlines going unanswered or being formally suspended; military attaches expelled; deconfliction refused during an incident; NATO-Russia contacts cut further. Channels going dark is a classic short-notice warning sign before an attack. FALLING (better): regular working-level military contacts resumed; the NATO-Russia Council or an equivalent reconvening; incident-prevention mechanisms agreed for the Baltic or Black Sea.

Baseline (21 Sep 2026)

STATE INDICATOR - scores the condition itself, not activity, and higher still means more dangerous, as everywhere else. 0 = functioning deconfliction and regular military contacts; 1 = partial channels working; 2 = only emergency links, rarely used; 3 = channels dark or deliberately cut. Exempt from the quiet-period rule: it changes only when the underlying condition changes. Current picture: after the Feb 2026 Abu Dhabi talks the US and Russia agreed to re-establish military-to-military dialogue and restore hotlines, explicitly to avoid collisions - a real, under-reported de-escalation step. The Moscow-Washington hotline and the 2022 Ukraine-war deconfliction line exist but have been used sparingly (once in the war's first nine months). The NATO-Russia Council remains dormant since 2022, and Vienna Document inspections and risk-reduction mechanisms are not functioning. So: bilateral US-Russia links partly restored, alliance-level and European mechanisms still dark.

Where to check

Arms Control AssociationTASSConsilium and Commission registersInternational Crisis GroupCarnegie Politika

Check log

• 2026-11-091MOSCOW FLOATS REVIVING THE NATO-RUSSIA COUNCIL AS THE MODEL FOR POST-WAR SECURITY TALKS. Kirill Dmitriev, Putin's special representative and head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund who handles the economic track with Washington, has pointed to the NATO-RUSSIA COUNCIL - created after the Cold War and suspended in 2014 - as a model for a future dialogue between Moscow and Europe on post-war security within a Ukraine settlement. WHY THIS MATTERS FOR THIS INDICATOR SPECIFICALLY: the Council's dormancy since January 2022 is the single reason this indicator sits at 1 rather than 0. Bilateral channels function - the emergency line has been used, the Grynkewich-Gerasimov link runs, written exchanges are answered - but the institution does not meet, and a standing forum is what separates working crisis contacts from a functioning architecture. A Russian proposal to revive it is the first movement on that question since 2022, and it comes from an economic envoy rather than the foreign ministry, which is a reason to treat it as a trial balloon rather than a position. Set against it, the foreign ministry said the same day that Moscow assumes Western sanctions are long-term. Score holds at 1. WATCH: whether this appears in the Abu Dhabi architecture discussion Lavrov says comes first, and whether any NATO member responds. Sources: Dmitriev via EADaily.
• 2026-10-231MOSCOW CONFIRMS THE NATO-RUSSIA EMERGENCY LINE HAS ACTUALLY BEEN USED. Speaking on the margins of the Verona Eurasian Economic Forum in Istanbul, a Russian foreign ministry official said the emergency communication channel between Russia and NATO has been used - answering a direct question about hotline contacts. This is the detail that was missing when lowering this indicator to 0 was considered on 13 October: the line existed, but there was no evidence it had carried traffic in an incident. Russia now says it has. Combined with the Grynkewich-Gerasimov military channel, the written exchange over Kaliningrad, intelligence-service contacts on prisoner releases and the resumed foreign-minister contact with Berlin, the practical communication picture is the healthiest since 2022. The institutional gap is unchanged: the NATO-Russia Council has not met since January 2022 and Vienna Document mechanisms remain dead. Score holds at 1; a Council meeting or resumed Vienna Document activity would move it to 0. Sources: Russian MFA via RIA and Vzglyad.
• 2026-10-191CHECKED, NO CHANGE (1). Russia's foreign ministry restated that Moscow remains open to dialogue with NATO but only on an equal basis, and that the West must abandon what it calls the militarisation of the continent - the standing Russian position rather than a new offer. Rutte's position, stated earlier this year, is that normal relations should be restored step by step once the war ends, and that it is for each European country to decide whether to resume bilateral dialogue now. So both sides describe a path back while neither opens one. No channel has closed. Sources: Russian MFA via RIA, Rutte via Bloomberg and The Moscow Times.
• 2026-10-131LOWERING TO 0 CONSIDERED AND REJECTED. The case for 0 ('functioning deconfliction and regular military contacts') is strong: a named top-level military channel to Gerasimov, written alliance-to-Moscow exchanges that worked within days on nuclear signalling, intelligence services in regular contact over prisoner exchanges, and foreign-minister contact restored with Berlin. The case against, which decides it: the NATO-Russia Council has not met since 12 Jan 2022, there are no routine working-level NATO-Russia military contacts, and Vienna Document inspections and risk-reduction mechanisms remain dead - so what exists is a set of bilateral lines at the top, not a functioning architecture. Score holds at 1. It would move to 0 on an NRC meeting, resumed Vienna Document activity, or evidence of the Grynkewich-Gerasimov line being used in an actual incident rather than merely existing.
• 2026-10-111CHECKED, NO CHANGE (1). Bilateral and alliance-level written channels both carried traffic this month; the US-Russia military hotline and intelligence-service contacts remain in place. The gap is institutional rather than practical: no standing forum, but functioning correspondence.
• 2026-10-071NATO-RUSSIA WRITTEN CHANNEL CONFIRMED WORKING, AND IT CARRIED A REASSURANCE. Lavrov stated that NATO's leadership had assured Moscow the alliance has no plans to attack Russia. This was the reply in an exchange of letters that began with a Russian letter threatening strikes on allied territory and invoking nuclear weapons after August exercises near Kaliningrad (logged in R05). SIGNIFICANCE FOR THIS INDICATOR: the NATO-Russia Council has not met since January 2022 and remains dormant, but written alliance-to-Moscow communication evidently functions at political level, alongside the restored US-Russia military hotlines and intelligence-service contacts. On the measure this indicator tracks - whether channels exist and carry traffic in a crisis - the answer right now is yes, including on the most dangerous subject matter. Score holds at 1. Sources: Lavrov via RIA/Vzglyad (7 Oct 2026), Politico Europe on the exchange.
• 2026-10-021CHECKED, NO CHANGE (1). No evidence of the military channel lapsing. Worth stating plainly: the senior US officer in Europe has an agreed line to the Russian military, and the two intelligence services talk regularly, while the NATO-Russia Council remains unused since Jan 2022. Bilateral channels work; alliance-level ones do not.
• 2026-09-301THE NATO-RUSSIA WRITTEN CHANNEL IS FUNCTIONING, including on nuclear matters. Russia's diplomatic note threatening nuclear use over Kaliningrad received a brief written NATO reply stating that no alliance exercise or activity threatens Russian territory; Rutte confirmed both the receipt and the response publicly and restated that NATO sees no immediate threat to its territory. Lavrov confirmed from the Russian side on 7 Oct that the alliance had given this assurance. So the most dangerous subject matter in the relationship was handled by written exchange within days, while the NATO-Russia Council itself has not met since January 2022. Sources: Reuters, Rutte via Euronews, Lavrov via RIA.
• 2026-09-261FIRST GERMAN-RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER TALKS SINCE BEFORE THE INVASION. Lavrov met Johann Wadephul on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly - the first such meeting since January 2022 - and Moscow's foreign ministry stated that THE GERMAN SIDE REQUESTED IT. Wadephul called on Russia to abandon its 'dangerous path of escalation' towards Germany, Europe and NATO, expressed openness to a better relationship conditional on genuine willingness to end the war, and pressed for an agreement on Black Sea grain exports; Lavrov said afterwards that 'nothing new came from' the conversation and noted Russian talks with India, Egypt and Turkiye on safe navigation in the Black Sea. The meeting happened WHILE Germany was attributing the Leipzig drone attack to Russia and preparing to close the last Russian consulate. Berlin is therefore dismantling the diplomatic infrastructure and seeking political contact at the same time - which is the distinction this indicator exists to capture: missions are not channels. Score holds at 1. Sources: Moscow Times, CNN, Al Jazeera, Washington Times citing the German delegation.
• 2026-09-251Found by the dedicated de-escalation search: the US has proposed reviving security talks under the NATO-Russia Council as part of a settlement package (Bloomberg via European Pravda). The Council has not met since 12 Jan 2022. Separately, NATO's own work on a new strategic approach to Russia has been on hold while Washington negotiates. Not yet an event - a proposal - so the score holds at 1. A first NRC meeting would be one of the strongest de-escalation signals available and would move this to 0-1 territory firmly.
• 2026-02-051DE-ESCALATION, AND MORE CONCRETE THAN A GENERIC 'DIALOGUE'. US European Command's own release states that the US and Russia agreed in Abu Dhabi to re-establish high-level military-to-military dialogue, a channel suspended in autumn 2021 before the invasion, and that Grynkewich - as commander of USEUCOM and NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe - holds authority to maintain contact with the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Federation, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, 'to avoid miscalculation and to provide a means for avoiding unintended escalation by either side'. An emergency deconfliction line had been maintained throughout; this restores standing contact at the top. A 314-prisoner exchange accompanied the agreement. Sources: EUCOM press release (primary), Reuters, Bloomberg.