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NATO-Russian Talks Go Into Overtime With Ukraine Watching

NATO-Russian Talks Go Into Overtime With Ukraine Watching

The U.S. urged Moscow to make a choice about whether it wants to de-escalate its activities near Ukraine after NATO allies and Russia met in Brussels on Wednesday without agreeing on the next diplomatic steps.

“There was no commitment to deescalate nor was there a statement that there would not be,” U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman told reporters after the meeting. “Russia’s actions have caused this crisis and it is on Russia to deescalate tensions and give diplomacy the chance to succeed.”

NATO and Russia still have “significant differences” after their first meeting in more than two years as they tried to ease tensions over Moscow’s troop buildup near Ukraine, the alliance’s top official said Wednesday. 

The two sides didn’t set another meeting. Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said NATO is willing to meet again but that Russia wasn’t ready to commit to a schedule.

“This was not an easy discussion, but that is exactly why this meeting was so important,” Stoltenberg said at a news conference, adding that NATO wants Russia to de-escalate tensions over Ukraine.

There was no sign of progress on one of Moscow’s main demands, that the alliance stop accepting new members. Stoltenberg reiterated that only NATO and applicant countries can decide on membership, saying Russia “does not have a veto” on whether Ukraine can join.

The talks lasted an hour longer than expected, according to a person familiar with the matter. The encounter comes after a U.S.-Russian meeting in Geneva earlier this week, with Western diplomats still struggling to discern the real intentions of Russian President Vladimir Putin toward Ukraine.

“I did not hear substantively new things because we had nearly eight hours of conversation, plus a dinner in Geneva,” Sherman said Wednesday.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko is planning a separate briefing.

The main topic at Wednesday’s meeting at the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Brussels was the more than 100,000 troops that Russia has massed on Ukraine’s border, prompting fears it is preparing an invasion.

The Monday session in Geneva didn’t give the U.S. and its allies much insight into the fundamental question of what Putin will do next, according to people close to the negotiations.

Little Leeway

As Moscow had telegraphed going into this week, the Russian diplomats appeared to have little room to go beyond the sweeping demands that the Kremlin had laid out at the end of last year, even though they were rejected almost immediately by the West.

At the same time, Moscow is continuing its troop buildup near the border with Ukraine, defying NATO calls for de-escalation. Western officials are increasingly worried that the Kremlin could leave forces there for a long period, keeping pressure on even without an invasion. In addition, Russia could step up efforts to destabilize Ukraine with cyberattacks or other means.

For its part, Moscow has sent mixed messages about this week’s talks, signaling satisfaction that the U.S. is finally taking its concerns seriously but warning that more progress is needed, and quickly. But Russia has been vague about what it might do it the diplomacy fails, hinting at possible new weapons deployments that could threaten the West.

Russian officials have touted as a triumph what they say is the agreement by the U.S. and its allies to finally discuss the Kremlin’s security concerns seriously after years of brushing them off. The Kremlin, which has denied any plans to invade Ukraine, said the decision on whether to continue diplomacy will be based largely on the outcome of Wednesday’s discussions.

War ‘Unthinkable’

War between NATO and Russia is “unthinkable” because it would lead to a wider global conflict, Latvian Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins warned in an interview with TV3. “Russia is not afraid of NATO forces, Russia is afraid of Ukraine’s democracy,” Karins told the broadcaster on Wednesday.

Meetings of the NATO-Russia Council had been frozen since an encounter in 2019, amid tensions over issues including the Russian annexation of Crimea, a Moscow-backed military conflict in the east of Ukraine and a clash over alleged spying.

The NATO talks will be followed by discussions in Vienna under the framework of the 57-nation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe on Thursday.

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.