The building of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation on Smolenskaya Square in MoscowMOSCOW, Jan 27Military tension in Europe will decrease if NATO withdraws its forces from Eastern European countries, said Alexei Zaitsev, Deputy Director of Information and Press of the Russian Foreign Ministry. «It is clear that military tension will decrease if NATO withdraws its forces from Eastern European countries. This is what we call for. This one of the pillars of our proposals to NATO on security assurances,» he said during a briefing on Thursday.NATO has not committed itself to protecting Ukraine, the Russian Foreign Ministry saidThe United States and NATO on Wednesday handed over to Russia responses to proposals for security guarantees. Earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that if the United States is asked not to publish its response to Russian security proposals, Moscow will not do so. At the same time, the minister added that the essence of Washington’s reaction to the Russian proposals, of course, deserves to be informed of the public in Russia and other countries. 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 eastward expansion of NATO, joining the Ukrainian bloc, and 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 1997 positions. 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 common ground. . According to him, there are «very positive things» in the written response, the United States is ready to advance 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 the «open door» principle of NATO.
