Would the game finally calm down on the Ukrainian border? While Russia and the West have been fighting over Ukraine for weeks, Sergei Lavrov said on Sunday that Moscow wanted “respectful” relations with Washington. “We want good, fair, mutually respectful and equal relations with the United States, as with any other country in the world,” he said in an interview broadcast on Russian television. Enough to hope that the dialogue with Anthony Blinken and the Europeans, during the meetings which have followed one another for the past few days, is going well.
Except that the head of Russian diplomacy immediately continued on the importance for Russia of obtaining concrete guarantees for its security. Russia “does not want to remain in a position where (its) security is regularly violated”, he underlines. “Each time, it turns out that the line that (the NATO countries) have to defend moves further to the east. Now it has already moved closer to Ukraine,” he said.
“We don’t want war”
According to Sergey Lavrov, Ukraine’s membership of NATO would seriously damage relations between Westerners and Russia. Moscow will therefore continue to seek “not only to obtain assurances, political commitments on paper, but also legally binding guarantees” that will take into account the “legitimate interests” of Russia.
He specified that Moscow would soon send the countries of NATO and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) “an official request urging them to specify how they intend to implement their commitment not to strengthen their safety to the detriment of the safety of others”.
The head of the Russian Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, for his part assured Sunday that Moscow was not threatening Ukraine, despite the presence of troops massed on the border. “We don’t want war. And we don’t need it at all. And those who impose it, especially Westerners, are pursuing their own selfish designs,” he said, quoted by Russian news agencies. Despite Russian denials, Ukraine on Saturday called on Westerners to remain “firm” towards Moscow. Several countries including the United States, the United Kingdom and France have announced the dispatch of new soldiers to Eastern Europe.
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