The Russian president called on Tuesday for “immediate” negotiations with NATO and the United States on guarantees to be given to Russia for its security, against a backdrop of tensions around Ukraine.
“Vladimir Putin stressed the need for the immediate launch of negotiations with the United States and NATO in order to define the legal guarantees for the security of our country,” the Kremlin wrote in a statement following an exchange with the Finnish head of state, Sauli Niinistö, whose country is a traditional intermediary between Russia and its Western rivals.
For Vladimir Poutine, such talks should make it possible “to exclude the future enlargement of the Alliance in the East and the deployment of weapons systems threatening Russia in Ukraine and in other neighboring states”.
The Russian president hammered home the same message in an interview with his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, asking him to “deal with Russian concerns” with understanding, according to the Kremlin.
In an interview by videoconference at the beginning of December, Vladimir Putin had asked Joe Biden for legal guarantees of this type, Moscow believing that the West, by opening the Alliance to countries of Eastern Europe and the former USSR from 1999 violated promises made after the fall of the Soviet Union in order to stem Russian influence.
For their part, Washington and the EU have warned Moscow that in the event of an armed incursion into Ukraine, Russia would face unprecedented economic sanctions, even though retaliatory measures of this type have so far and failed. since 2014 no effect on Russian policy.
“The bet of strength”
The West has also refused to rule out any NATO enlargement, while Ukraine’s membership is a red line for Russia. Already, Moscow had annexed the Ukrainian peninsula from Crimea in reaction to a pro-Western revolution in 2014.
The Kremlin is also seen as the political, economic and military godfather of the pro-Russian separatists with whom Ukrainian forces have been at war for almost eight years in eastern Ukraine.
It is in this context, moreover, that Russia is again suspected among the West of preparing an invasion of this country, deploying considerable forces at their common border.
The Kremlin rejects these accusations and says on the contrary that Russia is under threat from NATO, which is arming Kiev and increasing the deployments of air and sea assets in the Black Sea region.
On Monday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Riabkov warned that Moscow could “respond militarily” if the requested negotiations did not take place.
The head of Russian diplomacy, Sergei Lavrov, for his part insisted in a telephone interview with his new German counterpart, Annalena Baerbock, on Tuesday, on the “need” to provide “legally formalized commitments not to extend NATO to the East ”.
Fear dominates
In his interview with his Finnish counterpart, Vladimir Putin again accused the Ukrainian authorities of violating the Minsk agreements which establish a roadmap towards peace in the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
According to him, the Ukrainian authorities “are clearly betting on force, using heavy weapons and attack drones in the Donbass”.
Washington, for its part, sent Assistant Secretary of State for Europe, Karen Donfried, to Kiev, Moscow and Brussels this week.
[Les autorités ukrainiennes] clearly bet on strength, using heavy weapons and attack drones in the Donbass
“Our aim is to support Ukraine as we work to defuse the tensions” which she attributes to the troops massed by Russia on the border with that country, she said on Tuesday in Kiev, where she began her mission. tour. She is expected in Moscow on Wednesday.
Ukraine, for its part, complains about the unwillingness of the West to support it in practice. Thus, Kiev denounces the blocking of the process of joining the Atlantic Alliance and the obstacles to the delivery of weapons systems.
Our aim is to support Ukraine as we work to defuse tensions