The West should consider how to address Russia’s need for security guarantees if President Vladimir Putin agrees to negotiations about ending the war in Ukraine, French President Emmanuel Macron said in an interview with French TV station TF1 broadcast on 3 December, Reuters reports. The interview was recorded during his visit to the United States last week.
“This means that one of the essential points we must address – as President Putin has always said – is the fear that NATO comes right up to its doors, and the deployment of weapons that could threaten Russia,” Macron said. “That topic will be part of the topics for peace, so we need to prepare what we are ready to do, how we protect our allies and member states, and how to give guarantees to Russia the day it returns to the negotiating table.”
Russia and the US have both said this week they are open to talks in principle, though US President Joe Biden said he would only talk to Putin if the latter showed he was interested in ending the war. Ukraine says negotiations are possible only if Russia stops attacking and pulls out its troops.
Vladimir Putin could use peace talks to restock his army, warns UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly
Russian president not acting in 'good faith', says the British FM as he tells West to think carefully before entering negotiationshttps://t.co/wBdQGfWvZz
— Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) December 3, 2022
Back on 17 December 2021, Russia published a draft of its “security guarantees” demands calling for multiple concessions on NATO and Western military actions in Europe, including a moratorium on NATO expansion, a revocation of the 2008 NATO Bucharest Summit Declaration that Ukraine and Georgia are eligible to become NATO members, and rolling back NATO to its 1997 posture when the Russia–NATO Founding Act was signed.”
After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the topic of “security guarantees for Russia” almost disappeared from the political discourse, moreover the fact that Russia continued to transfer its troops away from the Finnish border to deploy them in Ukraine even after Finland and Sweden announced their intentions to join NATO showed that Russia actually doesn’t see NATO as a real threat to its security.
Ukraine is ready to negotiate with Russia only after withdrawal of Russian troops – Podoliak
