NATO to Hold Foreign Ministers Meeting on Ukraine Ahead of Talks With Russia

Russia will hold talks with NATO on January 12

NATO announced on Tuesday that the military alliance’s foreign ministers will hold a virtual meeting Friday to discuss Ukraine ahead of a week of intense diplomacy between Western powers and Russia.

NATO also confirmed that it will hold talks with Russia on January 12th at the alliance’s headquarters in Brussels. On January 10th, US and Russian officials will meet in Geneva for security talks on Ukraine and are expected to discuss security proposals put forward by Moscow in a bid to halt NATO’s expansion in the region.

On January 13th, a meeting of the Vienna-based Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe will convene, which will include the US and its NATO allies, Russia, and Ukraine.

Since early November, the US has been claiming that Russia is plotting to invade Ukraine, an accusation Moscow denies. On Sunday, President Biden spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and vowed that the US would “respond decisively” if Russia invades.

Often missing from the conversation about military activity near Ukraine is the significant uptick in US and NATO activity in the region near Russia. Since the US supported a coup in Kyiv in 2014, the US and NATO have increased their presence in the Black Sea, and the US has provided Ukraine with over $2 billion in military aid. These are the issues Russia is hoping to address in the upcoming talks.

Author: Dave DeCamp

Dave DeCamp is the news editor of Antiwar.com, follow him on Twitter @decampdave.