President Vladimir Putin lambasted the U.S. and its allies for “deceiving” Russia over the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization but suggested further talks may yield a resolution that address Moscow’s security concerns.
“I hope that dialogue will continue,” Putin said Tuesday in his first detailed public comments since December on the tensions. Western officials say Russia has built up more than 100,000 troops near the border with Ukraine and warned of punishing economic sanctions if Moscow invades, something the Kremlin says it doesn’t plan to do.
Putin reiterated that U.S. responses delivered last week to Moscow’s security proposals “ignored” Moscow’s key demands: binding commitments not to expand NATO further in the east and not to deploy offensive weapons near Russia’s borders, as well as to roll back alliance military infrastructure in eastern Europe. But he said he hoped a diplomatic resolution could yet be found.
“We realize it won’t be easy and of course I’m not ready today to say what that will be,” he said at a Kremlin news conference with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
Though the Kremlin has so far ignored Western calls to pull its troops back from the border with Ukraine, Putin’s comments suggested the Kremlin is willing to continue talks even though the U.S. and its allies have rejected his main demands outright. The U.S. argues that NATO is a defensive alliance and not a threat to Russia.
To help address Russian concerns, the U.S. has offered to discuss limits on missile deployments and military maneuvers in Europe. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called those “secondary issues” after phone talks Tuesday with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, but also suggested diplomacy will continue.
Russia is still deciding on its formal response to the latest U.S. proposals and will present it to Putin for a decision on how to proceed, Lavrov said.
In his comments, Putin repeated accusations that NATO reneged on assurances made in the early 1990s that the alliance wouldn’t expand in the east. He also said that U.S. missile-defense systems in Romania and Poland are a threat to Russia since they could also be used to launch cruise missiles. The U.S. says no binding assurances were given on alliance expansion and insists it has no plans to deploy such weapons in those countries.
Putin accused the U.S. of using Ukraine as a tool to “contain” Russia. He detailed his fears about possible NATO membership for Ukraine, saying that once part of the alliance, Kyiv could use Western cover to undertake a military move to retake Crimea, which Russia annexed from it in 2014.
