Russia has a new secret weapon in its standoff with the West — RT Russia & Former Soviet Union

The Kremlin’s press service reported that the 2 presidents had held an in depth phone dialog that centered on the difficulty of offering Russia with long-term and legally binding safety ensures. Putin informed Macron that “the Russian facet would fastidiously research the written responses to the draft agreements on safety ensures obtained from the United States and NATO on January 26, after which it might determine on additional motion.”

Moscow’s model of the talks additionally insists that Putin knowledgeable his French counterpart that “the US and NATO responses didn’t handle Russia’s basic issues.” These embrace stopping NATO enlargement, not deploying assault weapons close to Russia’s borders, and rolling again NATO’s army capability and infrastructure in Europe to the place they have been in 1997, when the NATO-Russia Founding Act was signed.

These and different calls for have been offered in two draft treaties that Russia handed to the Biden administration and Washington’s European allies in December 2021. At about the identical time, Putin reiterated Russia’s threats to take “military-technical measures” if NATO and the US saved on ignoring the nation’s main issues.

Nonetheless, Moscow has additionally made it clear that it continues to put its religion in a diplomatic resolution. As a part of the Kremlin’s diplomatic efforts, Russian Overseas Minister Sergey Lavrov is to ship a letter to the 57 member states of the Group for Safety and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), together with the US, in search of clarification of their place on the precept of “indivisibility” in Euro-Atlantic safety, as described within the OSCE’s 1999 Istanbul Declaration and the 2010 Astana Declaration.

In his assertion to the press of January 27, Lavrov mentioned, “This precept was formulated very clearly. It contains two interconnected approaches. The primary is the liberty of states to decide on army alliances. The second is the duty to not strengthen their safety on the expense of the safety of different states.

“In different phrases, the liberty to decide on safety preparations is conditioned by the pledge to respect the safety pursuits of every other OSCE state, together with the Russian Federation.”

In response to Lavrov, NATO is attempting to spin the matter by placing an emphasis on the primary method in saying Ukraine is free to hitch the alliance regardless of Russia’s objections whereas conserving silent in regard to the second . “We are going to now give attention to getting readability concerning this hypocritical place of our Western companions,” he concluded.

In response to a query from Kommersant that was requested in the course of the on-line press briefing on January 28, US Ambassador to the Russian Federation John J. Sullivan mentioned, “Talking on behalf of myself, as somebody who has undertaken the train lately to return and reread the entire related paperwork, the overriding precept that comes out of these paperwork is the safety of nationwide sovereignty, the precise of a rustic to find out its personal safety and its personal safety alliances.”

In response to Ambassador Sullivan, to make use of the idea of indivisible safety in such a method as to prevail over the precise of one other nation to find out its personal path for nationwide safety is unacceptable.

“Think about if Ukraine mentioned Russia must withdraw from the CSTO [Collective Security Treaty Organization] as a result of it – Ukraine – feels threatened by what Russia has carried out. That’s simply not the best way nations conduct enterprise collectively, significantly underneath the agreements that america and our allies and companions and Russia – Russia, and earlier than it the Soviet Union – agreed to over the a long time with the elemental precept of respect for nationwide sovereignty,” the ambassador continued.

Kommersant studied the paperwork in query and got here to the conclusion that they permit some room for interpretation. For instance, the 1999 Istanbul Doc states the next (and the Astana Doc repeats plenty of it): “Every collaborating State [of the OSCE] has an equal proper to safety. We reaffirm the inherent proper of every collaborating State to be free to decide on or change its safety preparations, together with treaties of alliance, as they evolve. Every State additionally has the precise to neutrality. Every collaborating State will respect the rights of all others in these regards. They won’t strengthen their safety on the expense of the safety of different States. Throughout the OSCE, no State, group of States or group can have any pre-eminent duty for sustaining peace and stability within the OSCE space or can take into account any a part of the OSCE space as its sphere of affect.”

In any case, Moscow has made it clear that it desires to keep up a dialogue with the West and keep away from confrontation. This seemingly has to do with the US’ and its European allies’ willingness to assist stress Ukraine’s management into complying with the Minsk agreements as a roadmap to settling the disaster within the Donbass – primarily the half that prescribes that the federal government ought to set up direct dialogue with the rogue Donetsk and Luhansk Republics and accord the Donbass particular authorized standing.

On January 26, after a six-month break, Paris noticed envoys from France, Germany, Russia, and Ukraine meet for a brand new spherical of Normandy Format talks. The following is scheduled to happen in two weeks’ time in Berlin.

Whereas the US will not be represented in these talks, it’s keen to help them, based on official statements. In one in all a sequence of current interviews with Russia’s 4 main radio stations, Lavrov mentioned that if Washington may “pressure Kiev” to implement the Minsk agreements – he added, “no one else can do it” – this final result “would go well with” Moscow. Nonetheless, he mentioned, “Thus far, I discover this difficult to imagine.”

Through the interview, he mentioned twice, “If it’s as much as the Russian Federation, there shall be no warfare.”

In all chance, Moscow additionally finds it reassuring that the US and NATO’s response to its proposals contained what Lavrov referred to as some “kernels of rationality,” albeit as regards to the “secondary points” somewhat than Russia’s main issues. The previous embrace, as Kommersant reported earlier, Washington’s and its allies’ pledge to help a dialogue with Russia about curbing their army exercise in Europe, which incorporates having typical and nuclear arms management mechanisms in place, being clear, avoiding army incidents, and restoring communication channels.

Lavrov mentioned that though all these measures had been “fairly essential for Russia sooner or later,” NATO had, for years, ignored Moscow’s makes an attempt to debate them. “The constructive method in these proposals has, the truth is, been borrowed from Russia’s current initiatives. I believe that now … we’re getting someplace,” the minister mentioned, including, “To reiterate, most significantly, we should always determine the conceptual pillars that underlie European safety.”

Lavrov went on to say, “With regard to problems with secondary significance, they [the United States and NATO] have been shocked by us [Russia] presenting these paperwork publicly. This helped change their destructive perspective in the direction of our earlier proposals, together with medium- and short-range missiles, and figuring out de-escalation measures in the course of the workouts. This implies the West understands solely this sort of language.”

His conclusion was that, on this case, Moscow “ought to proceed in the identical vein that it did when it put ahead its initiatives.”

The one factor Russia’s senior envoy didn’t point out was that, along with happening a diplomatic offensive, Russia has amassed somewhat plenty of its troops on its border with Ukraine. In Ambassador Sullivan’s opinion, “It’s the equal of you and I having a dialogue or a negotiation, and I put a gun on the desk however say I are available in peace. That’s threatening.”

Judging by Lavrov’s remarks, Russia desires each peace and to maintain the gun on the desk. As a result of it really works, you realize.