Russia’s demands to resolve the crisis in Ukraine

Friday, December 17, Russian Foreign Ministry published A series of requests to Western governments to ease ongoing tensions between Russia and Ukraine. The requests are contained in two documents, Someone went to the United States e one for NATO, the military alliance that includes a significant part of the Western countries, in which certain guarantees are required to resolve the crisis on the border with Ukraine: among them is the demand that Ukraine never join NATO and the withdrawal of all NATO military forces. Countries from different Central and Eastern European countries.

The orders come at a very delicate moment for international equilibrium. In recent weeks, the Russian government has massed tens of thousands of soldiers and vehicles on the border with Ukraine, a decision that has raised justified fears among Western countries of a possible invasion of Ukraine or its eastern part, currently disputed among Ukrainians. Government and pro-Russian militias.

The requests in the two documents have already been partially circulated in recent days, and Russian President Vladimir Putin allegedly presented some of them to his US counterpart Joe Biden during the December 7 videoconference. The two documents, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry, were to be submitted to the United States and NATO on December 15.

What has been talked about a lot in recent days, after a note published by the Russian government, was Legal Guarantee Request Ukraine has never joined NATO. It is a condition considered unacceptable and embarrassing for the West, and for the United States in particular: unacceptable because it would mean surrendering Ukraine to Russian influence a few years after the country left it. Expel the pro-Russian government Written by Viktor Yanukovych and trying to fit in with the West. Embarrassing because over 10 years ago, NATO promised Ukraine that it would welcome it among its members.

– Read also: NATO’s promise to Ukraine that no one intends to keep

However, the document published on Friday is more detailed and refers to all countries that were part of the former Soviet Union, not just Ukraine: another country that might participate in a potential agreement of this kind would be Georgia, among the previous ones. Soviet countries wishing to join NATO.

But there are equally ambitious demands in the two documents, which Western countries can hardly accept. First, it calls for withdrawing the deployment of NATO military forces from all countries that were not in the alliance before 1997, when three countries that were in the Soviet bloc were invited to join NATO for the first time: Poland, the Czech Republic. and Hungary (which officially entered 1999).

In addition to these three, the agreement will concern all other Central and Eastern European countries that joined the alliance in the following years: Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Albania, Croatia, Montenegro and Macedonia. North.

Among other demands, a ban on the deployment of warships and aircraft, by both the United States and Russia, from areas outside their respective national territories from which they could strike other state targets; obligation not to deploy medium-range missiles within and outside its borders that could strike the territory of another state; The withdrawal of all nuclear weapons deployed in foreign countries, as well as the commitment not to deploy new weapons.

Secondly Dimitri trainDirector of the Carnegie Moscow Center think tank Based in Moscow and dealing with international cooperation, the fact that the Russian government decided to publish these documents, which in any other case would have been kept secret, means that Russia considers their acceptance by the West unlikely.

Meanwhile, the United States did not comment on Russia’s requests in this regard, and White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said only that the two documents will be discussed with other NATO countries: “There will be no European security talks without the participation of our European allies,” he said while speaking to some journalists. “We will not compromise the fundamental principles underlying European security, including the right of all nations to determine their own future and their own foreign policy, without outside interference.”