Early Wednesday evening in New York, a few hours after Russia’s intervention force in Syria began bombing targets on the ground, Secretary of State John Kerry did something odd: He gave a joint statement with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

The two men, standing shoulder to shoulder somewhere in the United Nations building, said they were working to, as Lavrov put it, Kerry nodding along at his side, “establish channels of communications to avoid any unintended incidents” between their militaries in Syria, as well as work on the “political process” for resolving Syria’s war.

They didn’t say much. But the event spoke volumes, and probably not in ways that the United States wants, intended, or will find helpful.

Read the article “Kerry’s Consequential Gaffe on Russia, Syria” on vox.com.