Putin may use peace talks to demand NATO's return to its 1997 level - report
Kyiv • UNN
Moscow seeks to include Europe in the talks in order to secure restrictions on NATO's expansion. The Kremlin may demand the alliance's return to its 1997 level.
Russia will try to use a new round of peace talks on the war waged by the Russian Federation against Ukraine to secure concessions that would weaken NATO’s defenses. The Telegraph reports this, writes UNN.
Details
Yury Ushakov, the Kremlin’s foreign policy representative, said that Europe should be included in talks between Russian, Ukrainian, and American officials, as the continent would be crucial to reaching an agreement.
However, diplomatic sources told The Telegraph that Russia’s motive for including European countries is to use the next round of talks to secure concessions regarding NATO’s expansion, which Vladimir Putin has called the root cause of the war.
The Kremlin previously suggested that Putin might be willing to compromise on other issues if his main demands were met, "essentially stripping Ukraine of its sovereignty and forcing Nato to roll back its eastward growth," the publication writes.
Putin will probably demand that Nato’s footprint in Europe be reduced to its 1997 level, before former Eastern bloc countries began joining the alliance
This, it notes, "would mean a potential withdrawal of Nato troops from Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, as well as Finland, which joined the alliance in 2023. All five countries share a border with Russia."
Last week, Russia agreed to hold technical trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi next month after a lengthy pause in U.S.-mediated negotiations.
In an interview with state media, Ushakov said he did not expect significant progress at the meeting, calling it a "trial run."