Moscow’s talks this week on its wishes of Ukraine not joining NATO in the long term and less defences for Baltics and other eastern members of the alliance have not been productive, Russian officials have said as quoted by Belgian news portal EurActiv.
This week, Russian officials met with representatives of the US, as well as the diplomats of the member states of NATO and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. As to the concentration of Russian troops near the border with Ukraine, stressed by the US, the White House stated that the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine remained high with some 100,000 Russian troops deployed.
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Moscow, however, voiced disappointment and said it would continue dialogue, but was hitting a dead end. «At this stage it is really disappointing,» Russian Ambassador Alexander Lukashevich told reporters after a meeting of the OSCE, the third leg in a series of East-West talks this week. Lukashevich spoke of possible «catastrophic consequences» if the two sides could not agree on Russia’s demands it has called security red lines.
EurActiv reports that on Thursday, January 13, Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau said at the OSCE, not mentioning the Balkan wars and the more recent wars involving Russia: «It seems that the risk of war in the OSCE area is now greater than ever before in the last 30 years.»
Russia voices disappointment over not reaching its goals on Ukraine
