Deputy Chairman of Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev said that the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) and the United States are using Ukraine to gain geopolitical leverage as earlier United States delivered a reply in co-ordination with Nato allies, rejected any ban on Ukraine, but offering what it called a new “diplomatic path” out of the crisis.
In its first reaction to reply the Kremlin was unimpressed and said that the United States was failing to address its main security concerns over Ukraine but left the door open to further talks to ease tensions.
“It cannot be said that our views were taken into account, or that a readiness to take our concerns into account was demonstrated,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow’s chief concern, the potential for Ukraine to join Nato, had been ignored, but that it would be possible to move forward on other issues.
“There was no positive response to the main question,” Lavrov said in a statement, but “there is a response which gives hope for the start of a serious conversation on secondary questions”.
“Ukraine, unfortunately, has turned, to some extent, into a toy in the hands of Nato and the United States, as Ukraine is used as a geopolitical instrument to exert pressure on Russia,” the RIA Novosti news agency quoted Medvedev as saying during his interview with Russian media outlets.
According to Medvedev, neither the United States nor Europe “needs” Ukraine, and the situation around the country is used by the West in their “geopolitical game against Russia.”
Noting that the possibility of a direct clash between Russia and Nato over Ukraine would end up being ‘catastrophic,’ the official hoped it would be possible to ease tensions in the foreseeable future.
Medvedev pointed out that Moscow was never opposed to the involvement of the United States in negotiations around Ukraine, but Washington was currently creating problems by trying to influence Kiev.
He expressed hope that Ukraine would sooner or later move towards normalising ties with Russia.
Relations between Russia and the West have reached their lowest point since the Cold War after Moscow deployed tens of thousands of troops on the border of pro-Western Ukraine, raising fears of an invasion.
Russia denies any plans to invade but last month put forward demands for wide-ranging security guarantees from the West, including that Ukraine never be allowed to join the US-led NATO military alliance.
Ukraine confident
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba hailed the talks as a positive sign. “The good news is that advisors agreed to meet in Berlin in two weeks, which means that at least for the next two weeks, Russia is likely to remain on a diplomatic track,” Kuleba told reporters in Copenhagen.
The United States again encouraged its citizens to leave Ukraine, warning an invasion could be imminent. But Ukraine’s government, hoping to prevent panic, has played down the dangers and sought to offer ways out.
Kuleba told reporters that the Russian troops posed “a threat to Ukraine” but that the numbers deployed were “insufficient for a full-scale offensive”.
While Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hailed the outcome of talks between senior Russian and Ukrainian officials in Paris earlier this week aimed at finding a diplomatic solution to the conflict.
Zelensky “positively assesses the fact of the meeting, its constructive nature, as well as the intention to continue meaningful negotiations in two weeks in Berlin,” his press service said in a statement.
Envoys from Moscow and Kyiv agreed after talks that all parties should observe a ceasefire in the east of Ukraine where government forces have been battling pro-Russia separatists since 2014.
Nato’s door is open
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that he would speak again in the coming days to Lavrov.
Blinken said the reply, which would remain confidential, “sets out a serious diplomatic path forward should Russia choose it”.
He renewed an offer on “reciprocal” measures to address mutual security concerns, including reductions of missiles in Europe and transparency on military drills and Western aid to Ukraine.
But he made clear that the United States would not budge on Russia’s core demand that Ukraine never is allowed to join Nato.
“Nato’s door is open, remains open, and that is our commitment,” Blinken said.
Russia, which has a fraught historical relationship with Ukraine, has fuelled an insurgency in the former Soviet republic’s east that has killed more than 13,000 people since 2014.
Russia that year also seized Crimea after the overthrow of a pro-Russian government in Kyiv.
The United States has warned of severe and swift consequences if Russia invades, including possible personal sanctions on Putin, and Nato has put 8,500 troops on standby.
“While we are hoping for and working for a good solution — de-escalation — we are also prepared for the worst,” Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said.
In another bid to defuse tensions, senior Russian and Ukrainian officials met for eight hours in Paris with representatives of France and Germany.
More talks in two weeks
Dmitry Kozak, the Kremlin deputy chief of staff, said the talks were “not simple” but that another round would take place in two weeks in Berlin.
France said after the so-called Normandy Format talks that the envoys committed to a fragile July 2020 ceasefire in eastern Ukraine between government forces and pro-Moscow separatists.
“We need a supplementary pause. We hope that this process will have results in two weeks,” Kozak said.
US President Joe Biden, who spoke with European leaders by video conference on Tuesday, said any Russian military attack on Ukraine would trigger “enormous consequences” and could even “change the world”.
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