The United States and its European allies held talks with Moscow on Wednesday at NATO headquarters in Brussels to try to spare the region what Washington sees as a Russian threat to invade Ukraine, but Moscow showed no signs of appeasement at this point.
Moscow agreed to revive the NATO-Russia Council, an advisory body set up in 2002 and suspended in July 2019.
Talks between Russia and NATO took place in 2019, but practical cooperation between the two teams stopped in 2014 after Russia invaded and annexed the Ukrainian Crimea.
Russia’s diplomatic mission to NATO was withdrawn in October after the expulsion of eight members suspected by Western powers of espionage.
Jens Stoltenberg received NATO Secretary General Alexander Grushko at the alliance’s headquarters to try to defuse the worst East-West tensions since the Cold War, sparked by the standoff over Ukraine, which the United States says Russia is preparing to invade.
Moscow rejects these accusations, even though it is massing its forces near the Ukrainian border.
The NATO-Russia Council was attended by NATO ambassadors and ministers and a Russian delegation led by Grushko. This is NATO’s highest-profile attempt to turn a potential military conflict over Ukraine into a political and diplomatic process.
The NATO Secretary General emphasized that the NATO-Russia Council meeting was useful, recognizing that there are significant differences with Russia. He announced that the members of the alliance agreed to hold another meeting with Russia.
moment of truth
For his part, Grushko described the meeting as a “moment of truth” in relations between Russia and NATO.
The United States was represented by US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, while France sent Francois Delattre, director general of the French Foreign Ministry.
On Tuesday, Sherman informed representatives of the 30 member states of NATO about the contents of the negotiations she held in Geneva with Sergei Ryabkov, the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister.
She said that she made it clear to Russia that if it invaded Ukraine, there would be a great cost, explaining that joining NATO is the sovereign right of any country that decides to do so.
She stated that “Washington believes with our NATO allies that there are areas in which cooperation with Russia can be achieved.”
“There is no reason for optimism, but the Russians are seriously committed to the diplomatic track,” a representative of one of the European countries told AFP.
not resolved
The Geneva talks were not decisive, as the Russians and the Americans stuck to their positions.
Russia has demanded broad reassurances from Washington and its allies, including concrete guarantees that Ukraine will not join NATO.
The new US ambassador to NATO, Julian Smith, made it clear that the United States had not made any concessions, but had formulated proposals to reduce the risks of conflict and to embark on conventional and nuclear disarmament.
Washington assured Moscow that it does not intend to deploy offensive weapons in Ukraine, but it denied having any intention of disarming Europe, according to the European diplomat.
“It’s still too early to say whether or not the Russians are serious about the diplomatic track or if they are willing to negotiate seriously,” White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.
“The NATO relationship with Ukraine is a matter that concerns only Ukraine and the 30 allies within NATO, and does not concern other countries,” she added.
On Tuesday, Wendy Sherman sought to assuage European resentment at being left on the sidelines. She stressed that no issue related to security in Europe will pass without the participation of the Europeans, according to the European diplomat.
European warning
In a blog post, European Union Foreign Minister Josep Borrell warned that Russia wants to “reconfigure the Soviet geopolitical bloc in Europe and is trying to separate the United States from Europe. These goals are clearly unacceptable.”
“We will press for a concrete and substantive response, article after article, to the draft Russian agreement on guarantees,” Grushko said before the meeting.
Borrell stressed that the European Union members of NATO – must have “clear positions” in the talks on engineering Europe’s security and “we must formulate our response in the event that Russia carries out its threats against Ukraine.”
Borrell referred to “coordinated sanctions” and other unspecified steps. “We are not a military alliance, but rather we have the means to advance our security interests and those of our partners,” he said.
The Kremlin is upset
The Kremlin expresses its deep dissatisfaction with the expansion of the Atlantic eastward into the old Soviet sphere of influence, and considers that the tools of deterrence, the military modernization of the alliance led by Washington, constitute a threat to Russia.
Moscow carried out live-fire exercises involving troops and tanks near the Ukrainian border on Tuesday, while expressing pessimism about further talks with the United States.
Grushko said his country wanted to avoid confrontation, while his colleague, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who held talks with the United States in Geneva but did not go to Brussels, said Ukraine could not be allowed to join NATO.
NATO has no current plans to annex Ukraine, but it says Russia cannot dictate its relations with other sovereign nations.