During a three-hour press conference, the Russian Foreign Minister reported on the results of his office in 2021 and outlined his plans for the coming months, Kommersant reports. Most of the questions concerned Russia's request to the United States to provide guarantees that it would not expand NATO. Sergei Lavrov explained why Moscow has made its demands right now, where its red lines are and what it expects from Washington in the near future.
"It simply came to our notice then. They are accumulating in the period after the 1990s, when the promises made not to expand NATO, not to expand military infrastructure to the east and not to deploy significant combat forces on the territory of the new members were rudely thrown into the trash by our Western friends. Our patience has run out. We are very patient. But you know we endure too long? We have endured for a very long time and now is the time to leave. Here we are waiting for the coachman of this car to respond specifically to our proposals".
"We will wait for the proposals (of the United States and NATO). They promise to give them to us in literally a week, plus or minus. And we warned them, our partners, mostly American, that this (proposals submitted by Russia in December) is not a menu, but a package. Exactly the same package we talked about today on the issue of choosing unions. This element cannot be taken out of the general formula approved at the highest level on the indivisibility of security and the inadmissibility of strengthening one's own security at the expense of others. They need to understand that the key to everything is the guarantees that NATO will not expand to the east. Everything else will be in the general agreement. "
"Much of what is being said publicly today is probably related to the artificial escalation of tensions, with the desire to create such an atmosphere around the Russian Federation, including as an additional background to the negotiations that began in Geneva, continued in Brussels and I hope we can continue. But that will depend on the response of the United States, a concrete, written response to our proposals. "
"We know that the West is counting on a scenario that will allow Americans to absolve themselves of the primary responsibility for resolving these issues in negotiations with us. And first, in the Russia-NATO Council, they tried to dilute all this by attracting their allies, while in the OSCE it is generally impossible to hold any negotiations. "
"We have submitted the documents and we insist that our main concern for NATO's non-enlargement is to be legally binding. In the answer, I hope to get something understandable, in addition to the arguments that are being made at the moment that this is not appropriate for the West. Let's see what they will give us on paper and then we will decide how sincere our Western colleagues are not in the 90s, but now, in relations with the Russian Federation.
"We definitely do not accept the emergence of the North Atlantic Alliance directly on our borders, especially given the course followed by the Ukrainian leadership, both previous and current. What's more, it's really a red line. "
"Even if Ukraine stays out of NATO, there are possible bilateral agreements with the Americans, the British and other Western countries that are setting up military facilities and bases in the Sea of Azov there. This is also unacceptable to us, because the deployment of firearms on the territory of our neighbors, in this case Ukraine, which will pose a threat to the Russian Federation, is another red line. "
"There are several hundred American and British troops in Ukraine, and the involvement of Western instructors in the Donbas conflict will cross all red lines and mean a direct confrontation between the Russian people and the NATO military."
About NATO
"The Americans nod to NATO, saying they would be happy to discuss with us what is most important to us, but they say, 'We still have NATO, our allies are there.' I do not think this is a very honest presentation of the situation. They say they can't decide without allies, but Washington in general needs NATO only as an instrument of self-assertion as a Western leader, only to keep everyone in line with its policies and plans. "
On relations with the European Union
"We really want the European Union to play an independent role. We really want to have normal relations with the European Union, we have not destroyed them. Let the European Union decide for itself how ready it is to recreate them. For us, this is not a problem if it is done on the basis of mutual respect, seeking a balance of interests.
"We are interested in an independent European Union and are closely following the ambiguous trends that are developing in this union. We see how the European Union fears that its interests may be ignored. They openly acknowledge this after Afghanistan, after the Australian submarine epic, and after the creation of the so-called Indo-Pacific Security Partnership (AUCUS). Signals from some EU members of the need for strategic autonomy on security issues have become more active, but at the same time there is a very strong lobby in the European Union, which opposes any attempt to secede from NATO on security issues and insists that NATO is the key to security, including for the European Union. "
On the occasion of the upcoming visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to China
"We are preparing an official Russian-Chinese summit. At the invitation of President Xi Jinping, President Putin will visit Beijing on February 4, the opening day of the Olympic Games. And on the same day, full-scale negotiations will be held at the highest level. The talks, as always in the course of communication between our leaders, will cover the whole spectrum of relations. Rich bilateral agenda, unique architecture of bilateral relations - we have almost no other.
I am referring to the annual summits, the annual meetings of the Heads of Government and the annual meetings of the five commissions at the level of Deputy Prime Ministers, which prepare the meetings of the Heads of Government. And this mechanism has proven its effectiveness - we prepare solutions that are thought out in detail, feasible and really help to increase our interaction.
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