Washington receives Russia's response to security proposals
The Russian Foreign Ministry says Washington "distorted Russian proposals" regarding mutual security guarantees between the United States and Russia.
Today, Thursday, the United States of America received Russia's written response to the proposals for negotiating security in Europe to defuse the crisis in Ukraine.
A senior US official said the response was handed over to the US Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan in Moscow.
On his part, US President Joe Biden said, when asked about the Russian response regarding mutual security guarantees between the United States and Russia, which was delivered today, "I have not reviewed the Russian response yet."
Washington distorted Russian proposals on security guarantees
According to a statement by the Russian Foreign Ministry, Russia will be forced to respond amid the United States' unwillingness to agree on security guarantees.
It also clarified that Moscow insists on the withdrawal of all US forces and weapons from Central and Eastern Europe and the Baltic states, adding that Russia's response regarding security stresses the inadmissibility of demanding the withdrawal of forces from Russian regions.
Moscow also said that the United States "distorted" Russia's proposals on security guarantees in the direction of creating benefits for Washington and "ignored the package nature of the proposals, choosing convenient topics."
Russia, on the other hand, offered NATO members options to defuse tensions in Europe, which have emerged, among other things, as a result of the Ukraine crisis. The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a plan to address the issue. NATO's vow to cease all military activities in Eastern Europe and Ukraine was one of them.
Moreover, Russia sent a written message to the United States on February 1, containing the Kremlin's notes on the written answer delivered by Washington to Moscow, including its response to its security demands and conditions for resolving the crisis in Ukraine.
It is noteworthy that last December, Russia announced that it had submitted a list of proposals to the United States that include the legal guarantees for security against the backdrop of tension over Ukraine.
It is also worth noting that several Western countries have accused Russia in recent months of preparing to "invade Ukraine" based on allegations that Russia has amassed a number of its soldiers near the Ukrainian border to 125,000 people.
However, Moscow refutes all these accusations, noting that the deployment of its forces within its territories is an internal matter.