Lavrov: US-NATO fail to address Russian concerns

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov confirmed Moscow had received a written response from the US to his country’s requests for assurances over NATO expansion and expressed disappointment over the lack of concessions.   

Speaking on Thursday, the top diplomat said, “there has been no positive response” to the Kremlin’s core concerns in the document provided by the American side following weeks of talks with their counterparts.   
“The main issue is our clear position on the unacceptability of further NATO expansion to the East and the deployment of highly-destructive weapons that could threaten the territory of the Russian Federation,” Lavrov explained.   

According to Lavrov, the document produced by US Secretary of State Blinken following talks last week in Switzerland failed to address these points.   

Moscow, had asked for written guarantees that NATO would not expand into Ukraine or Georgia, a deal that US negotiators have said is off the table.   

Ukrainian and Western leaders have been warning for months that they fear that Russian President Vladimir Putin is planning an imminent invasion of Ukraine, which the Kremlin has denied.   

Meanwhile Russian parliamentarians have been demanding Russia ship military equipment to the Donetsk People’s Republic and Lugansk People’s Republic, territories that broke away from Ukraine when mass protests ousted former president Viktor Yanukovych to show how seriously the country was taking the crisis across the border in Ukraine.   
Russia, (rt.com), 27 Jan, 2022