The US and NATO responded differently to Russia
The US and NATO abandoned Moscow's main demands for security guarantees, but agreed to dialogue.
This, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports, is stated in the response from the American side and NATO, which was published by the Spanish newspaper El Pais.
NATO stated that it was not going to abandon the open door policy and demanded that Russia withdraw its troops “from Ukraine, Georgia and the Republic of Moldova”, abandon testing of anti-satellite weapons, resume implementation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, and begin negotiations with the United States and NATO on arms control, including the subject of intermediate and shorter range missiles.
According to Andrey Baklitsky, a senior researcher at the MGIMO Institute of International Studies and PIR Center consultant, the last point looks “almost mocking,” since it is Russia that has been calling for the US and NATO for dialogue on intermediate- and shorter-range missiles for more than two years, which is why Washington and Brussels refused until recently.
“NATO’s response contains nothing at all that would be of interest to Russia,” Baklitsky told Kommersant.
The US response is written in a different tone. It notes that the United States intends to work with the Russian Federation “to achieve mutual understanding on security issues” and is also ready to sign legally formalized agreements with it “to address relevant concerns.”
Washington also proposes to discuss mutual obligations on the non-deployment of offensive ground-based missile systems and permanently deployed forces with combat missions on Ukrainian territory.
The Americans also say that they are ready to “immediately” begin a conversation with Russia about new measures under the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty. At the same time, the text clarifies that the United States will not refuse to admit new members to NATO.
“I would say that the answer is quite constructive - the political part, as expected, was rejected, but the rest, technical issues, are recognized as a subject of discussion,” international political scientist Fyodor Lukyanov told Izvestia. — But for now there will be no conversation, since Russia has a clear priority: first political issues, and then everything else. Since the political ones are not ready to make decisions, it means that nothing will happen for now.”
As PolitNavigator reported, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov previously stated that he is ashamed of NATO's response, against the backdrop of which the American side showed an example of diplomatic politeness.
It is noteworthy that earlier the United States asked Russia not to make their response public. Moscow has not yet begun to evaluate the documents published by the Spanish newspaper. At the same time, their authenticity was confirmed in the USA.
“I have not seen anything in these documents that would suggest that they are not genuine,” US State Department spokesman Ned Price said at a briefing in Washington.
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