3 yıl önce

Russia sees 'positive' US reply over security proposals, Ukraine tension

US, Russia strike a conciliatory tone ahead of crucial January talks over Moscow's security guarantees that Washington says it's ready to discuss but talks must be based on "reciprocity."

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Russia presented the West with sweeping security demands last week including a guarantee that the US will not establish new bases in former Soviet republics.

Russia has said that US' willingness to discuss Moscow's security proposals to curb NATO's eastward expansion was "positive", as fears mount in the West over a major military escalation in Ukraine.

"The start of negotiations announced (for) January will allow us to move forward," President Vladimir Putin said at his annual end-of-year press conference on Thursday, adding that representatives from both sides have been appointed.

Putin's conciliatory tone came after tensions peaked this week when he vowed that Russia would take "appropriate retaliatory" military steps in response to what he called the West's "aggressive stance".

He also announced a new arsenal of hypersonic missiles that he has previously described as "invincible" were nearing combat readiness.

Also on Thursday, a senior US official said that Washington is "ready" for diplomacy talks with Moscow in Geneva that could start within weeks as soon as early January "through "multiple channels."

"There are some issues that Russia has raised that we believe we can discuss, and others that they know very well we will never agree to," the US official said.

The US official underlined that any dialogue must be based on "reciprocity."

"We are continuing to watch closely Russia's alarming movement of forces and deployments along the border with Ukraine."

Ukraine border tensions

The Kremlin has grown increasingly insistent that the West and NATO are encroaching dangerously close to Russia's borders.

Moscow presented the West with sweeping security demands last week, saying NATO must not admit new members and seeking to bar the United States from establishing new bases in former Soviet republics.

Tensions have been building since mid-November when Washington sounded the alarm over a massive Russian troop build-up on Ukraine's border and claimed that Putin is planning an invasion.

The West has long accused the Kremlin of providing direct military support to pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine, who seized two regions shortly after Moscow annexed Crimea in 2014.

Russia denies the claims and Putin has suggested that the conflict, which has claimed over 13,000 lives, is "genocidal."

'Unwavering' US support

Separately, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan spoke with Ukraine's Head of Presidential Administration Andrit Yermak Ukrainian counterpart amid the crisis in the country's east.

It came after Ukraine and Russia-backed rebel forces agreed to go back on July 2020 ceasefire in eastern Ukraine.

Sullivan promised Kyiv it has Washington's unwavering support.

SOURCE: TRTWorld and agencies