US Embassy building in Kiev. File photoMOSCOW, Jan 30The West wants to drag Ukraine into NATO, but this will not strengthen the security of the alliance, but will undermine relations between the West and Russia, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said. «It has already come close to Ukraine. They also want to drag this country in. Although everyone understands that Ukraine is not ready and will not make any contribution to strengthening NATO's security,» Lavrov said in the Sunday Time program on Channel One.
Russia wants good relations with the United States, Lavrov said. According to him, this would really undermine the West's relations with Russia, since it would be a flagrant violation of the official political commitment that the presidents of the United States and other member countries of the Alliance assumed. He added that in NATO's response to Russian proposals on security guarantees received from Brussels from NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, «proudly declares that NATO is a defensive alliance.» the United Nations, and how they behaved in Afghanistan. Even if we agree that they are a defensive alliance. When the Cold War was going on and the Berlin Wall existed, it was clear which territory to defend. The wall was gone, within the OSCE we proclaimed eternal friendship, the indivisibility of security , solidarity, have agreed that no one should strengthen their security at the expense of others — they continue to accept str ana (five waves of expansion),» Lavrov stressed. The head of the Russian Foreign Ministry stressed that the decision to admit new members to NATO should be consistent with the considerations of strengthening the security of the alliance, this is discussed in Article 10 of the Washington Treaty on the Creation of the North Atlantic Alliance. «They have not just the right to «whoever I want, I invite» — they should see how much this adds security to the alliance itself. We accepted the countries with whose peoples we have good relations — Montenegro, Macedonia. American authors ask themselves: how did this strengthen NATO's security? What contribution do these countries make to the security of the bloc, given their military and military-technical resources,» Lavrov added.NATO announced its readiness to provide assistance to Ukraine At the end of 2021, Russia published draft treaties with the United States and agreements with NATO on security guarantees. Moscow, in particular, demands from its Western partners legal guarantees of refusing further expansion of NATO to the east, from joining the Ukrainian bloc and from establishing military bases in post-Soviet countries. The proposals also contain a clause on the non-deployment of NATO strike weapons near Russia's borders and the withdrawal of alliance forces in Eastern Europe to the positions of 1997. According to US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, the document reflects US concerns about Russia's security actions and proposals on areas where countries can find points of contact. According to him, there are «very positive things» in the written response, the United States is ready to move forward in areas where cooperation with Russia is possible, ready to discuss common security, the response once again emphasizes that the United States will not compromise NATO's «open door» principle.
NATO has no plans to deploy battlegroups in Ukraine, Stoltenberg said
