Russia wants an explanation of European security obligations from western nations before making its next proposals on the Ukraine crisis, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
Moscow is asking NATO members and countries in the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe to clarify how they intend to fulfill OSCE obligations not to strengthen security at the expense of the security of others, Lavrov said on Russian state television.
Their answers to the Foreign Ministry’s official request will be “key to determining our future proposals, which we will report to Russian President Vladimir Putin,” Lavrov said.
The U.S. has warned repeatedly in recent weeks that Russia may be preparing to invade Ukraine after massing more than 100,000 troops near their border. The Kremlin denies this, while also demanding binding security guarantees from Washington and its NATO allies that Ukraine will never be allowed to join the military alliance.
Russia also wants the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to withdraw its forces to positions held in 1997, before central and eastern European countries became members. While the U.S. and NATO have rejected these demands, they sent written proposals for strengthening European security to Moscow in the past week, including on missile deployments and military maneuvers.
Russian President Vladimir Putin told his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron in a “lengthy” phone call Friday that the proposals failed to answer Russia’s main concerns, though Moscow would study them further before deciding on its next step, according to a Kremlin statement. He said the U.S. and NATO had “ignored a key question” on ensuring indivisible European security.
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