Kremlin waiting for response from US on security guarantees

Russia hopes to receive concrete answers from the United States to its security guarantee proposals in January 2022, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the media on December 24, Report informs referring to TASS.

The Kremlin official stated that the United States and its allies were taking "very unfriendly actions" towards Russia.

"They have been conducting very unequivocal exercises near our borders. Their reconnaissance planes have been making flights and naval ships conducting maneuvers, and so on and so forth," Peskov said. "All this evokes Moscow’s serious concern and forces us to take certain measures to guarantee our own security."

"In order to discuss de-escalation issues, we expect to receive from our opponents in Washington clear answers to our questions and to our proposals that were formulated in the drafts of the well-known treaty and well-known agreement," Peskov said.

While commenting on US officials’ claims about a Russian military buildup on the border with Ukraine Peskov said: "Whatever Russia might be doing with its forces, it is doing this in its own territory. In this respect we can hardly agree with somebody challenging this sovereign right of ours."

Peskov said that Russia was taking certain actions "to relocate and redeploy its armed forces within its territory against a backdrop of very unfriendly actions by NATO opponents, the United States and various European countries."

Asked how a compromise might be achieved in a situation like this Peskov called for waiting for the United States to make an answer first.

"First of all, there must follow an answer to the clearly formulated Russian proposals. Then it will be possible to have a discussion," he explained. Peskov said that no dates for beginning negotiations existed "for the time being." He confirmed that Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov had been appointed an envoy in charge of this issue.

Earlier, the Russian Foreign Ministry published Russian drafts of agreements on security guarantees that Moscow expected the United States and NATO to provide. Among other things the documents envisage NATO’s pledge to rule out its eastward expansion, including the possibility of Ukraine’s membership, and also restrictions on the deployment of attack weapons, including nuclear ones. Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Joe Biden discussed such guarantees on December 7. The Russian leader had repeatedly said such guarantees must be formalized properly, because the West’s previous verbal promises had been broken.