Foreign Ministry: discussions of security guarantees are impossible as long as there are NATO instructors in Ukraine

Moscow cannot negotiate security guarantees as long as NATO instructors and mercenaries remain in Ukraine, and “the realities defined by the Russian Federation on the ground” are not recognized, declared Director of the North America Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry Alexander Darchiev in an interview with TASS.

“Until the pumping of weapons and finances of the regime [президента Украины Владимира] Zelensky, American and NATO military personnel/mercenaries/instructors will not be withdrawn, and the realities we have defined on the ground will not be recognized, it is premature to start any serious negotiations on security guarantees in relation to Ukraine and the Euro-Atlantic region,” he said.

The diplomat noted that a year ago Russia tried to negotiate by proposing security treaties with the United States and NATO, but received only a categorical “no” in response.

On the evening of December 21, Zelensky arrived in the United States on his first foreign visit since the beginning of the special operation in Ukraine. Following the joint talks, US President Joe Biden said during a joint press conference at the White House that Zelensky was open to seeking a “just peace” with Russia. In response, Russian Ambassador to Washington Anatoly Antonov said that this visit demonstrates Kyiv’s unpreparedness for a peaceful settlement of the conflict.

In December 2021, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation published draft treaties on security in Europe, which were developed at the direction of President Vladimir Putin after the summit with Biden. Russia then proposed to the United States to exclude the further expansion of NATO and its military activity in the post-Soviet republics and the accession of Ukraine to the alliance, as well as mutually not to deploy short-range and medium-range missiles in Europe and not to deploy additional weapons outside the borders of the military bloc for 1997. In addition, the alliance was asked to abandon the legal prescribing of each other as opponents in strategic documents and from actions that the parties may regard as a threat.

Earlier in September, the Office of the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky introduced draft security guarantees for Ukraine. The package of guarantees includes preventive measures of a military, financial, technical and information nature, as well as actions to be taken in the event of “a new encroachment on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.” The guarantors of Ukraine’s security, according to the project, will be the EU countries, the USA, Great Britain, Australia, Canada and Turkey. In the Kremlin, this project considered a threat to Russia’s security.