On December 15, 2021, Russia provided the drafts of the Russian-American treaty on security guarantees, as well as an agreement on measures to ensure the security of Russia and NATO.
Russian President Vladimir Putin voiced the theses of those agreements at the final meeting of the Russian Defense Ministry on December 21.
Moscow is concerned about the deployment of elements of the US global missile defense system near Russian borders, as well as about NATO's possible expansion to the east.
In fact, Russia submitted its own system of "red lines" — long-term legally binding security guarantees — to the West. This happened largely due to the violation of the agreements on the non-expansion of the North Atlantic Alliance.
At the same time, according to the Russian president, if the West continues its aggressive policy against Russia, Moscow will take adequate retaliatory military measures and react harshly to unfriendly steps.At the beginning of 2022, Russia's proposals for security guarantees were given a lot of attention in international negotiations:
- on January 10 — at Russia-US bilateral talks in Geneva;
- January 12 — at a meeting of the Russia-NATO Council in Brussels;
- January 13 — at a special meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna.
The American side rejected most of the Russian proposals during the bilateral negotiations on January 10. The rest of the meetings only relayed Washington's position on issues of mutual security guarantees.
The head of the Russian delegation, Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia Sergey Ryabkov said that the main problem of the talks was the unwillingness of the United States and NATO to meet the key Russian demands for non-expansion of the alliance, curtailment of its infrastructure and return to the 1997 borders.
In his opinion, it is pointless to continue the dialogue and discuss secondary points that the Americans propose with such an approach.
The question of NATO's non-expansion to the east concerned mainly Ukraine, where, according to both sides, hostilities may outbreak.
According to Peskov, the parties failed not reach an agreement on specific issues.
"The negotiations were initiated in order to get specific answers to specific fundamental questions raised. It is these fundamental issues that we had disagreements on. This is bad,” Peskov assessed the recent talks.
Answering a question of possible sanctions against Russia, Peskov said that Moscow was extremely negative about such a development. The issue of sanctions does not contribute to the formation of the constructive atmosphere in the negotiations on security guarantees, he said.
The negotiations were held between the delegations of Russia and NATO on January 12. The meeting lasted for more than four hours. The Russian delegation was represented by Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation Alexander Grushko and Deputy Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation Alexander Fomin. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and representatives for 30 resident countries of the alliance took part in the talks too.
On January 10, Russian and US delegations held talks in Geneva on guarantees of security and strategic stability. They lasted for about 7.5 hours. The meeting was held behind closed doors at the US Permanent Mission to the UN Geneva Office without the participation of journalists.
Russia fully prepared to respond to NATO, if need be
If all political means to counter NATO threats end up in failure, Russia will have to respond with military means, Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia Alexander Grushko said at a press conference devoted to the results of the negotiations held within the framework of the Russia-NATO Council, which took place in Brussels on January 12.
"Russia has outlined: we have a package of legitimate military measures that we will apply should we see real security threats coming. We can already see them: they view our territory as an object to target their strike weapons at, and, of course, we can not agree,” he said.
"We will take all necessary measures to fend off those threats by military means, if political means fail,” Grushko pledged, adding that one should not let the situation develop to such a point. One needs to move forward in the directions that Russia has outlined, he said.
"Today, Russia and the North Atlantic Alliance do not have a common agenda. There is no such thing at all,” Grushko stated.
Meanwhile, Anatoly Antonov, the Russian Ambassador to the United States, said that allegations of Moscow's intentions to invade Ukraine were nothing but the fruit of sick imagination and mental disorder of American Russophobic circles.
In a message posted on the official Facebook page of the Russian diplomatic mission, Antonov reiterated that Russia had no aggressive intentions against Ukraine.
It appears that American politicians started a myth in the press about Russia's imminent invasion of Ukraine, and now they overcome their own phobias, the ambassador wrote.
He also said that in the requirements from US lawmakers to punish Moscow harder came as attempt to show influence on security talks between Russia and the United States.
"In this pressure, we see the inability of the United States to reasonably defend its point of view at the negotiating table,” the ambassador added.
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