Talks between the US and Russia on the Ukraine crisis leave low expectations

By Emma Farge

GENEVAJan 10 – The United States and Russia began tough negotiations in Geneva on Monday that Washington hopes will help avert the danger of a new Russian invasion of Ukraine without giving in to the Kremlin’s growing security demands with publicly pessimistic diplomats.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said over the weekend that diplomacy was entirely possible to end after a single meeting, and even US Secretary of State Antony Blinken played down the expectations of the high-profile talks. level.

“I don’t think we’re going to see any progress in the next week,” Blinken said in an interview with CNN on Sunday.

The talks between Ryabkov and US Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman began at the US diplomatic mission in Geneva, at a time when US-Russian relations are at their most tense since the Cold War ended. three decades ago.

Sherman said that “the United States will listen to Russia’s concerns and share ours” in a previous tweet from Geneva, adding that discussions on European security would not take place without the presence of other allies. The discussions will move to Brussels and Vienna later this week.

Nearly 100,000 Russian soldiers are near the border with Ukraine, in preparation for what Washington and Kiev say could be a possible invasion, eight years after Russia seized the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine.

Russia denies the invasion plans and said it is responding to what it calls aggressive and provocative behavior by the military alliance of the OTAN and Ukraine, which has leaned towards the West and aspires to join the OTAN.

Last month, Russia filed broad lawsuits that included a ban on further expansion of the OTAN and the end of the alliance’s activity in the Central and Eastern European countries that joined it after 1997.

United States and the OTAN they claim that much of the Russian proposals are not viable.

Ryabkov told the news agency RIA that Russia would not accept US attempts to limit the agenda to discussion of military exercises and missile deployments, the issues identified by the Joe Biden administration as areas it is willing to address.

“We need legal guarantees of the non-expansion of the OTAN and the elimination of everything the alliance has created since 1997, “Ryabkov said.

Russia has tried to show flexibility for the past 30 years and it is time for the other side to be flexible, he said. “If they are unable to do so, they will face a deterioration in their own security.”

The general secretary of the OTANJens Stoltenberg, who will meet with the Russian team on Wednesday in Brussels, said that Russia and the West may not resolve all the issues this week, but that they may find a way to avoid conflict.

“What we hope is that we can agree on a way forward, that we can agree on a series of meetings, that we can agree on a process,” Stoltenberg said.

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Olga Stefanishyna, who appeared alongside him, said that Russia’s demands “cannot be considered a negotiating position.”

He told reporters that the “aggressor is not in a position to put conditions” as long as the Russian tanks remain near the Ukrainian border.

–