Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba spoke about the special feature of Russian President Vladimir Putin in the negotiations – to end them with an agreement. He spoke about this on December 28 in an interview with RBC-Ukraine.
“In principle, it doesn’t matter to us how many participants there will be, the main thing for us is that President Putin is sitting at the table. He has such a trait that when he already sits down at the table, he tries to get up because of him with an agreement, and then you can look for a solution. And the experience of the 2019 Paris Summit testifies to this, ”said Kuleba.
He had previously stated that the United States and NATO would not agree to provide the security guarantees that Russia demands. Kuleba noted that the security guarantees proposed by Moscow include “not only a demand that NATO not expand, there is a demand to end NATO’s military presence in NATO member countries.”
According to him, accepting such a demand in any form would be the greatest humiliation of the United States and NATO in history since the founding of the alliance.
On December 27, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced its readiness to begin negotiations with the North Atlantic Alliance on security guarantees, as stated by Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin during consultations on draft treaties between Russia and the United States and NATO on security guarantees.
On December 17, the Russian Foreign Ministry published draft agreements between Russia and the United States and NATO on security guarantees. It follows from the documents that the alliance should refuse to conduct any military activity on the territory of Ukraine and other states of Eastern Europe, Transcaucasia and Central Asia.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov noted that the Russian Federation expects to receive concrete answers from the United States in January to proposals on security guarantees. At the same time, he stressed that the United States and European countries are conducting unambiguous maneuvers and exercises in the immediate vicinity of the borders of the Russian Federation, and this cannot but cause concern on the Russian side.
