by Vladimir Soldatkin
MOSCOW, December 23 (Reuters) – Russia wants to avoid conflict with Ukraine and the West, President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday, while calling for an “immediate” response from Washington and NATO to its demands for “security guarantees”.
“It is not our choice, we do not want that”, assured Vladimir Poutine during his annual press conference about the possibility of a conflict with Ukraine.
Russia, he added, received a generally positive initial response to the security pledges it is demanding and which it laid out in detail last week.
Negotiations will begin in early 2022 in Geneva.
The Russian president, however, was more annoyed when he spoke of how NATO, according to him, “deceived” Russia with several waves of expansion since World War II, and added that Moscow needed quick answers.
“You must give us guarantees, and immediately, now,” he insisted.
Moscow rejects accusations by Kiev and the West that it is preparing an invasion of Ukraine, after massing tens of thousands of soldiers near the Ukrainian border.
Russia is demanding, among other security pledges, that Westerners promise to renounce all military activity in Eastern Europe.
“There must not be any new movement of NATO towards the East. The ball is in their court”, declared Vladimir Poutine. (Report Vladimir Soldatkin; French version Jean-Stéphane Brosse, edited by Blandine Hénault)
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