MOSCOW â Russia on Friday published draft security demands that NATO deny membership to Ukraine and other former Soviet countries and roll back the allianceâs military deployments in Central and Eastern Europe â bold ultimatums that are almost certain to be rejected by the U.S. and its allies.
The proposals, which were submitted to the U.S. and its allies earlier this week, also call for a ban on sending U.S. and Russian warships and aircraft to areas from where they can strike each otherâs territory, along with a halt to NATO military drills near Russia.
The demand for a written guarantee that Ukraine wonât be offered membership already has been rejected by the West, which said Moscow doesnât have a say in NATOâs enlargement.
NATOâs secretary-general emphasized Friday that any security talks with Moscow would need to take into account NATO concerns and involve Ukraine and other partners. The White House similarly said itâs discussing the proposals with U.S. allies and partners, but noted that all countries have the right to determine their future without outside interference.
The publication of the demands â contained in a proposed Russia-U.S. security treaty and a security agreement between Moscow and NATO â comes amid soaring tensions over a Russian troop buildup near Ukraine that has raised fears of an invasion. Moscow has denied it has plans to attack its neighbor but wants legal guarantees precluding NATO expansion and deploying weapons there.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Russiaâs relations with the U.S. and NATO have approached a âdangerous point,â noting that alliance deployments and drills near Russia have raised âunacceptableâ threats to its security.
Moscow wants the U.S. to start talks immediately on the proposals in Geneva, he told reporters.
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NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance had received the Russian documents, and noted that any dialogue with Moscow âwould also need to address NATOâs concerns about Russiaâs actions, be based on core principles and documents of European security, and take place in consultation with NATOâs European partners, such as Ukraine.â
He added that the 30 NATO countries âhave made clear that should Russia take concrete steps to reduce tensions, we are prepared to work on strengthening confidence building measures.â
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the administration is ready to discuss Moscowâs concerns about NATO in talks with Russian officials, but emphasized that Washington is committed to the âprinciple of nothing about you without youâ in shaping policy that impacts European allies.
âWeâre approaching the broader question of diplomacy with Russia from the point of view that ... meaningful progress at the negotiating table, of course, will have to take place in a context of de-escalation rather than escalation,â Sullivan said at the event hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations. He added âthat itâs very difficult to see agreements getting consummated if weâre continuing to see an escalatory cycle.â
While U.S. intelligence has determined that Russian President Vladimir Putin has made plans for a potential further invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, Sullivan said the U.S. still does not know whether he has decided to move forward.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki noted that strategic security talks with Moscow go back decades, saying that âthereâs no reason we canât do that moving forward to reduce instability, but weâre going to do that in partnership and coordination with our European allies and partners.â
âWe will not compromise the key principles on which European security is built, including that all countries have the right to decide their own future and foreign policy free from the outside interference,â Psaki said.
Moscowâs draft also calls for efforts to reduce the risk of incidents involving Russia and NATO warships and aircraft, primarily in the Baltic and the Black seas, increase the transparency of military drills and other confidence-building measures.
A senior U.S. official said some of the Russian proposals are part of an arms control agenda between Moscow and Washington, while some other issues, such as transparency and deconfliction, concern all 57 members of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, including Ukraine and Georgia.
The official, who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity in order to talk about the proposals, said the U.S. is looking at how to engage every country whose interests are affected in prospective talks on European security issues and will respond to Moscow sometime next week with concrete proposals after consulting with the allies.
President Vladimir Putin raised the demand for security guarantees in last weekâs video call with U.S. President Joe Biden. During the conversation, Biden voiced concern about a buildup of Russian troops near Ukraine and warned him that Russia would face âsevere consequencesâ if Moscow attacked its neighbor.
Russia annexed Ukraineâs Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and shortly after cast its support behind a separatist rebellion in the countryâs east. More than seven years of fighting has killed over 14,000 people and devastated Ukraineâs industrial heartland, known as the Donbas.
The Russian demands would oblige Washington and its allies to pledge to halt NATOâs eastward expansion to include other ex-Soviet republics and rescind a 2008 promise of membership to Ukraine and Georgia. The alliance already has firmly rejected that demand from Moscow.
Moscowâs documents also would preclude the U.S. and other NATO allies from conducting any military activities in Ukraine, other countries of Eastern Europe and ex-Soviet republics in the Caucasus and in Central Asia.
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry commented on Moscowâs proposals by emphasizing that itâs up to the alliance and Ukraine to discuss NATO membership prospects and its military cooperation with other countries.
âThe Russian aggression and the current Russian escalation along the Ukrainian border and on the occupied territories is now the main problem for the Euro-Atlantic security,â said its spokesman Oleg Nikolenko.
The Russian proposal also ups the ante by putting a new demand to roll back NATO military deployments in Central and Eastern Europe, stating that the parties agree not to send any troops to areas where they hadnât been present in 1997 â before NATOâs eastward expansion started â except for exceptional situations of mutual consent.
Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic joined NATO in 1999, followed in 2004 by Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and the former Soviet republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. In the following years, Albania, Croatia, Montenegro and North Macedonia also became members, bringing NATO membership to 30 nations.
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The draft proposals contain a ban on the deployment of U.S. and Russian warships and aircraft to âareas where they can strike targets on the territory of the other party.â
Moscow has long complained about patrol flights by U.S. strategic bombers near Russiaâs borders and the deployment of U.S. and NATO warships to the Black Sea, describing them as destabilizing and provocative.
Russiaâs draft envisages a pledge not to station intermediate-range missiles in areas where they can strike the other partyâs territory, a clause that follows the U.S. and Russian withdrawal from a Cold War-era pact banning such weapons.
The Russian draft also calls for a ban on the deployment of U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons on the territory of other countries â a repeat of Moscowâs longtime push for the U.S. to withdraw its nuclear weapons from Europe.
Dmitri Trenin, the director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, noted that the publication of the Russian demands signals that the Kremlin considers their acceptance by the West unlikely.
âThis logically means that Russia will have to assure its security single-handedlyâ using military-technical means, he said on Twitter.