Putin Says to Mull Options If West Refuses Guarantees on Ukraine

Date: 26 December 2021 - 21:25

News ID: ۹۸۱۹۶

MOSCOW (AP) – Russian
President Vladimir Putin said Sunday he would ponder a slew of options if the West fails to meet his push for security guarantees precluding NATO’s expansion to Ukraine.
Earlier this month, Moscow submitted draft security documents demanding that NATO deny membership to Ukraine and other former Soviet countries and roll back its military deployments in Central and Eastern Europe.
Putin has urged the West to move quickly to meet the demands, warning that Moscow will have to take “adequate military-technical measures” if the West continues its “aggressive” course “on the threshold of our home.”
Asked to specify what such Moscow’s response could be, he said in comments aired by Russian state TV Sunday that “it could be diverse,” adding without elaboration that “it will depend on what proposals our military experts submit to me.”
The U.S. and its allies have refused to offer Russia the kind of guarantee on Ukraine that Putin wants, citing NATO’s principle that membership is open to any qualifying country. They agreed, however, to launch security talks with Russia next month to discuss its concerns.
Putin said the talks with the U.S. will be held in Geneva. In parallel, negotiations are also set to be held between Russia and NATO and broader discussions are expected under the aegis of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

‘Germany, U.S. at Odds’

German officials are more doubtful of the actual prospects of a Russian attack on Ukraine than their U.S. counterparts, and Berlin is interested in deescalating tensions in the region, two German government sources told Reuters.
One source said senior German and Russian officials will hold negotiations in January in an effort to ease tensions over Ukraine, with Jens Ploetner, a foreign policy advisor to Chancellor Olaf Scholz, agreeing to meet with Dmitri Kozak, deputy Kremlin chief of staff and acting Ukraine negotiator, following a long telephone conversation Thursday.
“The German side’s goal remains to achieve a swift reactivation of the Normandy format,” Reuters’ German government source stated, referring to the contact group of Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France that has been meeting continuously since June 2014 in an effort to end the war in eastern Ukraine.
In remarks broadcast Sunday, Putin said that Russia submitted the demands in the hope of a constructive answer from the West.
“We didn’t do it just to see it blocked ... but for the purpose of reaching a negotiated diplomatic result that would be fixed in legally binding documents,” Putin said.
He reaffirmed that NATO membership for Ukraine or the deployment of alliance weapons there is a red line for Moscow that it wouldn’t allow the West to cross.
“We have nowhere to retreat,” he said, adding that NATO could deploy missiles in Ukraine that would take just four or five minutes to reach Moscow. “They have pushed us to a line that we can’t cross. They have taken it to the point where we simply must tell them; ‘Stop!’”
He voiced concern that the U.S. and its allies could try to drag out the security talks and use them as a cover to pursue a military buildup near Russia.
He noted that Russia published its security demands to make them known to the public and raise the pressure on the U.S. and its allies to negotiate a security deal.
“We have just one goal — to reach agreements that would ensure the security of Russia and its citizens now and in a long-term perspective,” he said.
Russia has denied an intention of launching an invasion and, in its turn, accused Ukraine of hatching plans to try to reclaim control of the territories that were annexed to Russia.