Foreign Ministry publishes Russia's responses to US proposals on security guarantees
Photo: Alexey Kudenko / RIA Novosti
The Russian Foreign Ministry has published the text of Moscow's written response to the US response on security guarantees. The document was presented by RIA Novosti.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced earlier that the Russian side is completing the analysis of the American letter and is ready to publish its reaction. “Of course, we will publish this document. We have nothing to be ashamed of,” the diplomat clarified on February 15.
Russia again denied allegations of preparing an invasion of Ukraine
In the document, the Russian side once again denied numerous reports by Western and Ukrainian media that Moscow was allegedly planning an invasion of Ukrainian territory.
There is no “Russian invasion” of Ukraine, which the United States and its allies have been declaring at the official level since last fall, and is not planned, so statements about “Russia’s responsibility for the escalation” can only be regarded as an attempt to put pressure on and devalue Russia’s proposals for guarantees security
from a document published by the Foreign Ministry
The statement also denied accusations of the illegal occupation of Crimea and recalled that the accession of the peninsula occurred as a result of a referendum in accordance with the right to self-determination enshrined in the UN Charter. The Russian authorities considered untenable the allegations of American representatives that Moscow also fomented the conflict in Donbass. The statement recalled that his reasons are purely domestic in nature.
In order to resolve the conflict, Russia proposes to engage in the implementation of the Minsk agreements and the “Package of Measures”, the sequence and responsibility for the implementation of which are clearly spelled out in the UN Security Council Resolution 2022 – including the United States, France and Great Britain.
“In paragraph 2 of this resolution, Kiev, Donetsk and Lugansk are named as parties. None of these documents mentions Russia's responsibility for the conflict in Donbass. Russia, together with the OSCE, plays the role of a mediator in the main negotiating format – the Contact Group – and together with Berlin and Paris – in the Normandy format, which formulates recommendations to the parties to the conflict and monitors their implementation,” the Foreign Ministry recalled.
In addition, in a statement, the Foreign Ministry insists on not accepting Ukraine into the North Atlantic Alliance, since in this case “there will be a real threat that the regime in Kiev will try to 'return' Crimea by force.” In this case, Russia, the US and US NATO allies will be drawn into the war.
Russia invited the United States to start a dialogue on strategic stability
Moscow invited the United States to start a dialogue on the adoption of a new “security equation”.
Earlier, the United States, in its response to Russia's proposals on security guarantees, noted that the parties should work on developing measures to develop the Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (START, or START-3) and the Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles ( RIAC).
“However, at the same time, the American side is trying to fix an approach that has not been coordinated with us, which provides for focusing exclusively on nuclear weapons, regardless of the ability of certain weapons to pose a direct threat to the national territory of the other side,” Moscow objected.
In this regard, Russia insists on withdrawing all American troops and weapons from central, eastern, southeastern Europe and the Baltics. The document also calls on Washington to refrain from deploying nuclear weapons outside national territories.
Moscow expects NATO to formally refuse to expand eastward
“[NATO's open door policy] runs counter to the basic commitments made within the CSCE/OSCE, most notably the commitment not to strengthen one's security at the expense of the security of others,” the Russian statement stressed.
Russia called on the US and NATO to return to fulfilling international obligations in the field of maintaining peace and security. In this regard, she expects the alliance to come up with concrete proposals on the content and form of a legal waiver of eastward expansion.
Moscow will be forced to respond by applying military-technical measures if Washington refuses to dialogue and conclude legal security guarantees, the document stressed. Since Russia's red lines are already ignored, it is ready to take serious steps to protect its national interests.
In a conversation with Lenta.ru, Andrey Kortunov, Director General of the Russian International Affairs Council, noted that if NATO does not comply with this requirement, then the alliance will be held accountable. The expert stressed that it is important here to indicate what kind of expansion is being referred to: the supply of defensive weapons or modern drones that can be used in the Donbass.
If Russia agrees with its allies and partners in Latin America on the deployment of some systems, then this creates a threat for the United States comparable to that which the United States creates for Russia
Andrey KortunovDirector General of RIAC
Deputy US Ambassador expelled from Russia before publication of Russian reaction
A few minutes before the publication of the Russian response, Deputy US Ambassador Bart Gorman was expelled from the country. According to Jason Rebholz, the press secretary of the diplomatic mission, he kept a valid visa, the diplomat stayed in Russia for less than three years.
Commenting on the incident, the US State Department promised to come up with a similar response. The department believes that it was Moscow that made the American diplomatic mission on the territory of the Russian Federation “managed much worse” than the Russian one in the United States.
Kortunov suggested that Gorman's expulsion might not be related to the Foreign Ministry's publication. “But I admit that, perhaps, this was deliberately done to show that we are ready to respond in this way by reducing the staff of the American embassy in Moscow. Although here we are not talking about some kind of mass expulsion of American diplomats, but about one person. This is very unpleasant, but not fatal, ”the expert emphasized.
