On Thursday, Russia delivered its reply to the American response to Moscow’s security proposals. The Russians noted the US willingness to negotiate arms control measures but said it was not a “constructive response” because Washington didn’t address Moscow’s chief concerns.
“We state that the American side did not give a constructive response to the basic elements of the draft treaty with the United States prepared by the Russian side on security guarantees,” the Russians said, according to a translated version of the written response posted on the Russian Foreign Ministry’s website.
Among the issues Russia said were not properly addressed were NATO’s eastward expansion and the issue of rescinding the promise to Ukraine and Georgia that they would eventually become members of the military alliance. President Biden has said publicly that Ukraine won’t join NATO anytime soon, but the US reaffirmed to Russia that it supports the alliance’s “open door” policy.
Moscow also reiterated its call for US forces to withdraw from Eastern Europe. “We insist on withdrawal of all US armed forces and weapons, deployed in Central Eastern, Southeastern Europe, and the Baltics. We are certain that national potentials in these areas are quite enough,” the Russian response says. Amid the current tensions with Russia, the US has deployed additional troops to Eastern Europe and is working with NATO to expand the alliance’s presence in the region.
Russia said the US didn’t respond to its call for the US to withdraw all of its nuclear weapons that are in Europe. Russia takes issue with the fact that there are US nuclear warheads deployed in non-nuclear states. For example, there are about 20 US B-61 nuclear bombs in Germany, and despite being a non-nuclear state, Berlin has a fleet of Tornado fighter bombers to deliver the warheads.
Although the US didn’t address the concerns listed above, Washington did make serious arms control offers, which Russia recognized. The two sides are willing to work on a mutual ban on the deployment of missiles previously banned under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, a replacement for New START, and verification measures to confirm the US doesn’t have Tomahawk missiles at its bases in Romania and Poland.
“We note the readiness of the United States to work substantively on individual arms control and risk reduction measures,” the Russian response reads. The Russians said the ideas “proposed by the American side for developing our idea of mutual verification measures” to confirm there are no Tomahawk missiles at US bases “can be further developed.”
Russia said if the US isn’t ready “to agree on firm, legally binding guarantees to ensure our security from the United States and its allies” it would be forced to respond “through the implementation of military-technical measures.”
Many Western media outlets took the “military-technical measures” line as Russia threatening military action. But it’s more likely Russia would look to deploy missiles or other military hardware to its allies in Latin America, if they allow it. In January, a Russian arms control official alluded to this, and said without new treaties, a new missile crisis is “unavoidable.”
Once again, this report misses a critical point: Russia is not willing to discuss the issues over intermediate range forces and military exercises separate from the overall issue of legally binding security guarantees on its 3 main concerns as listed. The Russia response makes that explicit, as I quoted in a previous thread. They want the entire thing considered as a “package deal.” They are aware that the US wants to drag out the side negotiations before getting to the main Russian concerns – and Russia is not going to do that.
Precisely. Russia has desctibed US proposals as “cherry-picking”, identifying issues that enhance its security and ignoring issues that Rusdia considers a red line.
There is a small matter of Russia-NATO founding agreement, 1997 that defined prohibition of positioning of NATO troops in new member states. At fiirst NATO used a worksround by not stationing troops permanently but as a visiting/rotating. Later, every pretense dropped,
In fact, while Russia is ready to talk about US proposals — first priority are the red lines. Example are launchers in Poland, Romania — Russia expects them dismantled. Not chasing possible hiding places of Tomahawks,
The essence of the reply is — not serious.
Probably a better way to understand the issues of memberships for Ukraine or Georgia. When a French reporter asked a question after Putin-Macron meeting as to why would Russia want to have a war in Europe? The reply was — why would France want to have a war with Russia?
The reality is that accepting Ukraine (or Georgia) into alliance would automatically make Russia sn enemy of the alliance. Ukraine has a territotial dispute with Russia and by accepting Ukraine, NATO accepts Ukrainian’s position on Crimea and Donbas, making NATO obligated to come to Ukrainian defence in recovering lost territory.
This is why Ukraine has no intention of implementing Minsk Agreement. It has made plans for “reintegrating” the region by force utilizing Croatian successful ethnic cleansing of Serbian minority regions. Croatia was consulted by Ukraine,
This will be a challenge to Russia. Minsk Agreement is between Kyev and Donbas entities.
Russia, Germany and France are the guarantors.
However, all Western countries are acting as if this Agreement is between Russia and Ukraine.
So, once Kyev starts the campaign of “reintegrating” Donbas, a tricky piece of magic — to declare that Russia is DIRECTLY fighting Ukraine.
This is the one to watch,
Otherwise, why is Russia accepting evacuation of all non-combatants to Russia. Women with children and elderlly are being evacuated.
Unlike in Croatia’s operations where paramilitaries went ahead of the army, committing unspeakable attrocities, making sure that news spreads, and panicked refugees clogg the roads, chaos to reign, rendering defense impossible.
It serms that the operation to recovet Donbas started. The question is — will Washingtom give a signal for it to proceede, or will iit be called off?
It is clear that Russia will not have Rusdian troops partiicipate, but Russia had a broad range of private armies fortify Donetsk, prepare surprises, and remove vulnerable from the equasion.
We shall see.
Yes, it might be a case of “boiling a frog slowly” that the initial assaults over the last couple days are going to be ratcheted up slowly just to a given point. As long as the Donbass militias can return as well as they get, Russia won’t need to move. The real question, as The Saker mentioned today, is: will the line of contact be moved and if so how far and how fast? That will condition the Russian response.
Russia has a lot of options for reinforcing the Donbass militias without having to do anything directly – ship them better artillery and counter-battery tech, give them armed drones that can take out Ukrainian artillery battalions from behind, etc.
I imagine this response will be ignored by the Biden Administration for as long as possible, but so will NATO expansionism. I’d be very worried about the next administration, though.
It would be, except the Russians won’t let that happen. They’ll attack if Biden insists on this blind refusal of their concerns.